Ford wins Swedish WRC round

The BP-Ford pairing of Marcus Grönholm and co-driver Timo Rautiainen took out the Sewdish round of the 2006 World Rally Champiopnship on the weekend.

The win made it two-from-two for the Finns and Ford in the new WRC season and marked Ford's 50th world rally victory.

It was Grönholm's fourth win in Swedish and he now leads the drivers' championship by four points from 2005 champs, Kronos Total Citroën's Sebastien Loeb and co-driver Daniel Elena.

Third was Swedish driver, Daniel Carlsson ahead of charging Italian, Gigi Galli. Both drivers were campaigning ex-factory Mitsubishi Lancer Evos.

The Swedish Rally is the only pure winter event in the series with temperatures of colder than -20C and the entire rally undertaken on ice and snow covered roads.

subaru teammates, Petter Solberg and Australia Chris Atkinson had mixed fortunes.

Solberg was put out of contention after breaking a driveshaft in the first stage of the event. Then before the start on SS18 on day three of the event, the Norwegian was excluded after his WRX would not start.

Chris Atkinson fought back from an off on day one to finish in tenth place.

The young Subaru driver was in fifth place early on the opening day before an off-road excursion left him to complete two stages without any power steering. The problem pushed him back to 61st place, but his consistent results over the remaining 16 stages moved him back to the top ten by rally’s end.

Grönholm's dominance was reflected by his special stage performances -- winning 10 of the 19 stages over the three-day event.

"This is another fantastic result," the Finnish driver said.

"After my first test in the Focus RS here before Christmas, I thought I could take a good result in the rally but to win is just amazing. To win both my first two rallies in the car is a dream and it's good for the future."

Loeb closed the championship points gap to Gronholm with his second placing in Sweeden but couldn't match the overall pace of the Ford Focus driver.

"Right up to the start of the last stage we tried everything: absolutely everything!" Loeb said.

"Today Marcus was quicker than us. It was as simple as that. Another second place, with eight drivers' and constructors' points, is a good start to a season."

FIA World Rally Championship classification for Drivers: 1 M Grönholm (FIN), 20 pts; 2 S Loeb (F), 16 pts; 3 T Gardemeister (FIN), eq D Carlsson (S), 6 pts; 5 M Stohl (A), 5 pts; 6 G Galli (I), 5 pts; 7 S Sarrazin (F),  eq T Rådström, 4 pts; 9 C Atkinson (AUS), 3 pts; 10 K Katajamäki (FIN), 3 pts.

The next round of the World Rally Championship is Rally Mexico from March 2-5.