Stockholm, Feb 07: Estonia's Marko Martin put himself in position to become the first non- Scandinavian to win the Swedish Rally after taking the lead on day one. Two successive fastest times put the Ford Focus driver 23.3 seconds ahead of Citroen's Sebastian Loeb.
World champion Petter Solberg was in third place in his Subaru, with Loeb's Spanish team-mate Carlos Sainz fourth.

Early leader and favourite Marcus Gronholm dropped down the field after suffering a power steering failure.

The Finn had led after the first two stages but dropped down to seventh after his steering went on the third leg.

"We lost the power steering and it was quite difficult to drive," said the double world champion.

"I tried for a while to go as fast as possible but it was dangerous. You could not let it go sideways. We cannot fix the one minute we lost. That's the big problem. But I haven't given up yet."

Gronholm recovered one place to take sixth place overnight but he is still almost a minute adrift of Martin.

Martin has a chance of taking the lead in the overall championship if he wins the rally but he is not looking that far ahead.
"Now I am in front all I can do is make sure I do the best job I can to stay there," said the Estonian, who was victorious in Finland last year.

Bureau Report