By Motorsport.com staff

The Ford Focus driver Markko Martin had a great first day in Sweden. The
rally driver overcame a six-point five second deficit after stage one to
take the overall lead in the second round of the 2004 FIA World Rally
Championship.

"It's been an enjoyable day," expressed the rally leader Martin. "The
conditions were better than expected; the car was absolutely spot-on and
the driver only made one mistake -- stalling at the start of stage two."

After placing fourth fastest in the 19.59km opening stage of this year's
Swedish Rally, Martin finished second on the 19.20km SS2 to set up his
back-to-back stage victories on the third and fourth long challenging
Granberget one and two specials consisting of over 104km combined.

"It was very icy but really good fun," reflected Martin on the first
run through Granberget. "Being second car through the stage there were
no lines or ruts from other cars and I was able to play with the car a
little and choose exactly the line that I wanted. Now I'm in front, all
I can do is make sure I do the best job I can to stay there."

The Estonian leads Monte Carlo winner, Sebastien Loeb by over
twenty-three seconds as the curtain fell at the end of the first day of
competition. Loeb placed his Citroen first on the final stage, 1.86km
Hagfors Sprint.

Loeb was pleased with today's outcome, "Today we had good conditions so
we could fight with the others."

Early leader, Peugeot's Marcus Gronholm was fastest on stage one, fifth
on the second stage and on the Granberget 1 third stage developed power
steering failure and slid down the leaderboard. As the two-time World
Champion climbed his way back up, he had a dismal final stage dropping
him nearly one minute behind Martin to end the day.

"Unfortunately, the power steering failed with 20 kilometres of the
long stage left to run," stated a disappointed Gronholm at the end of
stage three. "Before then, the feeling was very good. Even with this
problem, I knew that I still had to push but it was quite dangerous
because the steering kept on jumping back at me. I dropped some time but
I'm not giving up yet -- we still have a good chance. It should be a
nice fight!"

The weather can easily affect the outcome of the Swedish Rally and as
Gronholm understands, it is only day one of a very competitive and
difficult rally.

Tyres were a factor today, some choose good, others did not. On stages
three and four, it appeared that Martin had made an excellent selection
as he edged the competition. Gronholm and Subaru's Petter Solberg were
able to keep up with the Ford driver's pace on the fourth stage.

The 2003 World Rally Champion Solberg climbed to third overall after
stage four, a position he held at the end of the final short stage.
Solberg is 26.9 seconds behind the overall leader.

"I'm very pleased so far," Solberg commented. "I've never gone well
in Sweden before. We have to try to beat these guys [Martin and Loeb]
tomorrow, but they're going very well. We'll have to push."

The second stage fast time was set by Carlos Sainz who was then second
overall to Gronholm. Martin and Loeb passed him by after stage three but
the Citroen driver was holding off the challenge of Solberg. The wrong
tyre choice did Sainz in as there was not a lot of ice on the gravel
road and the tyre studs came apart costing the Spaniard dearly dropping
him to fourth overall.

Gilles Panizzi's rally appeared to have ended early as the Mitsubishi's
second gearbox looked to be terminal. The first one had already been
replaced.



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