Gronholm was first to hit trouble, 2.3km from the start line, when his Stobart Team Ford Focus was brought to a halt by a suspected electrical fault. The Finn managed to get going again and complete the stage, but a time 12 minutes slower than stage winner Jari-Matti Latvala dropped him from sixth to 30th place.
Raikkonen's problems occurred later in the stage, just a couple of kilometres before the finish, when he drove his Citroen Junior Team C4 WRC into a snow bank and got stuck. Like Gronholm he eventually managed to get going again, but the incident meant he completed the stage more than 26 minutes slower than Latvala. The Finn, who was 10th overall on SS5, dropped out of the top 30.
Jari-Matti Latvala's stage winning performance was his first of the rally, and came after the Finn made set-up adjustments to his Ford Focus RS WRC. "We raised the ride height and the difference was incredible - it was a different car to drive!" he said.
Sebastien Loeb set the second fastest time, and moved up to second overall, but said the drive had not been a smooth one: "The surface is extremely hard and rough. There were lot of impacts under the car," he explained.
Dani Sordo slipped to third after setting the fourth fastest time. The Spaniard was 6.5sec slower than Latvala and arrived at the stop control concerned that his car had seemed down on power for the final two kilometres.
Mikko Hirvonen held his rally leading position, albeit by a slimmer margin of 5.1sec, and seemed relaxed about the state of his tyres. "They don't seem too bad for the moment," he said.
Source: RallyBuzz
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