Gronholm 'rolls' on, Martin and Rovanpera retire.

Peugeot's Marcus Gronholm continues to lead the Propecia Rally New Zealand today [Saturday] following SS14, however he was lucky to survive the test before.

Gronholm rolled his Peugeot 206 WRC mid-stage in Parahi [SS13]. Fortunately for the Finn though, the car landed on its wheels and the current World Champion was able to complete the test and maintain his position at the top of the leaderboard, albeit dropping 35 seconds to stage winner, Markko Martin. The Estonian remained in overall second.

In another incident, Subaru driver Petter Solberg overshot a junction 4km in, left the road, and came to rest in a ditch.

As he waited for spectators to help him get back onto the stage, the Norwegian lost about 30 seconds, but he was eventually able to complete the stage at a competitive pace and maintain overall fifth position.

In SS14 Gronholm bounced back and reasserted his dominance, charging through to take the stage win and quash any rumours that his car may have sustained terminal damage. He finished 16.6 seconds ahead of team-mate Richard Burns, who was second and 19.4 seconds ahead of Sebastien Loeb, in third.

Ford's Markko Martin meanwhile hit trouble. After scoring a hat-trick of stage wins earlier in the day, the young Estonian spun 4km from the end, stalled and was unable to restart the engine of the new Ford Focus. He eventually conceded retirement, bolstering Burns up in to second overall.

The loose gravel in the stage also brought the end of Harri Rovanpera's rally. The Finn left the stage near to the finish and sustained terminal damage to his 206 WRC. The Finn had been running fourth overall.

Today's action now concludes with two runs through the Manukau super special stage [SS15 and SS16], the first beginning at 19.00 [local time] / 08.00 [BST].