Gronholm: If it rains I'll struggle to keep third.

BP Ford team leader, Marcus Gronholm reckons he will hard pushed to keep third place on the Rallye Deutschland on Sunday, if it rains.

Gronholm took third from Toni Gardemeister on SS12 on Saturday and ended the day just over 25 seconds up on his fellow countryman, having won two stages and been second quickest on three others. However, Marcus is not particularly enjoying the event, as he doesn't have any confidence with his Focus in the wet. As conditions could well be wet again on Sunday, he will be keeping his fingers crossed that the rain will hold-off.

"We swapped the settings back to those we used on the pre-event test, which was dry, and the car felt good," he noted. "It's just in the wet that I'm struggling because I don't have the confidence. I need to practise driving in the wet to find the right set-up for this car, but there hasn't been much rain this summer to do that.

"It has been so much better in the dry today. Slick tyres in the rain are just not for me. Now I have to fight to stay on the podium because I cannot catch Dani Sordo in second. I just hope there is no more rain tomorrow so that our tyre choices are easy. If the stages stay dry then I can keep Toni behind, but if it rains or it is damp then I'm in trouble."

BP Ford team director Malcolm Wilson meanwhile was much happier at the end of the second leg than he had been 24 hours earlier: "It was a better day for us, primarily due to the dry conditions. We set three fastest times which proves our dry weather set-up works well and I'm pleased that the drivers regained their confidence," he added.

Mikko Hirvonen for the record ended the day in fifth place overall in the second 'works' BP Ford Focus WRC car, 15 seconds or so behind Toni Gardemeister and around 20 seconds up on OMV Peugeot's Manfred Stohl, who dropped down to sixth.

"I've set good times and matched Marcus which I'm happy about," said Mikko. "We got our tyre choices right today and I had really good grip. I lost time in the slippery sections this morning because I didn't have the courage to push, but when I reached a good section with lots of grip I maybe didn't have the confidence to push as hard as I should have done.

"I will try to catch Toni tomorrow but the key factor will again be tyres and everyone will be nervous. I'm not sure I can catch him if we both make the same tyre choice because there are not enough kilometres remaining but if we take different options then it's possible."