Motorsport: GRONHOLM PLAYS A LEAD ROLL!

MARCUS Gronholm hung on to his lead in the New Zealand Rally yesterday, despite rolling his Peugeot on stage 13 of the second leg north of Auckland.

The Finn had the good fortune to roll back on to his wheels and only lost 35 seconds to then second-placed Estonian Markko Martin in his Ford Focus by the end of the stage in the hamlet of Parahi.

After stage 16, world champion Gronholm had a lead of exactly one minute over his British teammate Richard Burns after Martin had been forced to retire with engine trouble on stage 14.

"Today has been good, apart from the mistake on one stage (the 13th). I was too quick into a junction and bang, there were only two spectators there, so it took time to get going again. I'm happy and quite confident about tomorrow."

Third was Norwegian Petter Solberg in a Subaru Impreza, 1min 50.7sec behind the leader. Frenchman Sebastian Loeb in a Citroen was fourth, just ahead of Belgian Freddy Loix in a Hyundai.

Stage 14 proved expensive for Finn Harri Rovanpera who rolled out of the race in his Peugeot. Fellow Finn Kristian Sohlberg also went off, although he managed to continue.

To cap an incident-packed day a small fire broke out and officials abandoned stage 14 for the later drivers.

Tommi Makinen, winner of four consecutive world titles from 1996, saw his hopes ended after a costly run-in with a policeman.

The Finn was caught speeding at 99 kph in the country town of Paparoa after stage 10, refused to stop, and was later handed a five- minute penalty by race stewards to drop him down to 15th position.

Leading positions after day two: 1 Marcus Gronholm (Finland) Peugoet 2hr 42min 43.7sec, 2 Richard Burns (Britain) Peugoet 1min 00.9sec behind, 3 Petter Solberg (Norway) Subaru 1min 50.7sec, 4 Sebastian Loeb (France) Citroen 2min 23.7sec, 5 Freddy Loix (Belgium) Hyundai 5min 51.6sec, 6 Alister McRae (Britain) Mitsubishi 6min 28.8sec.

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