Gronholm clinches dominant win

Gronholm was in dominant form in Sweden

World champion Marcus Gronholm has won the Rally of Sweden after a dominant drive in the ice and snow north of Karlstad.

The Peugeot star controlled the rally after taking the lead on the first day, and was always comfortably in control despite a determined challenge from Subaru's Tommi Makinen.

Gronholm beat his fellow Finn by 50.8 seconds, with the second Peugeot of Briton Richard Burns in third place.

Gronholm said: "I am very happy of course. It was a good rally with no mistakes and the car was perfect. It looks good, but we have 12 more rallies to go."

Estonian Markko Martin was fourth in a Ford, after holding off Colin McRae, who made a superb recovery after two spins on the first day.

Makinen started the final day by setting the fastest time and inching closer to Gronholm, but the Peugeot star recovered the lost time on the very next stage and was not troubled again.

Norwegian Petter Solberg, Makinen's team-mate, was sixth.

It is Gronholm's first victory of the year - he crashed while leading the Monte Carlo Rally last month.

The only change to the overall top 10 on the final day of the rally was the charge up the leaderboard of Frenchman Sebastien Loeb, the Monte Carlo winner.

Loeb, who started the day in 10th place, leapfrogged Belgian Freddy Loix, his Spanish Citroen team-mate Carlos Sainz and Finn Toni Gardemeister to finish seventh.