Mikko Hirvonen continued on his merry way at the front of the Rally of Great Britain as he finished day two of the event with an increased lead of 35.5 seconds over Marcus Gronholm.

The 27-year-old Finn was put in the shade by his countryman Jari-Matti Latvala, who won three of the afternoon's four' stages to continue his fightback after dramas on day one.

But with the Stobart driver over ten minutes back overall, Hirvonen was able to take things as he pleased, managing to add a handful of seconds to his already commanding advantage on the second run through the Crychan, Epynt and Halfway stages.

That came in spite of a brief overshoot on stage 11 through Epynt, which cost him the chance to break Latvala's run of stage wins.

"I just went off in a junction where everyone else had problems this morning, a tarmac junction," Hirvonen said. "I slid off and lost maybe five seconds.

"It's been a good day, good lead for tomorrow and it's nice to start again. I've never been to the Millenium Staduim before so it'll a bit special when we go there for the SuperSpecial tonight."

Gronholm, who was quickest on the final stage of the day, the SuperSpecial around Cardiff's Millennium Stadium, had his progress hampered by a mystery problem with the right-rear of his Ford, which left the machine "handling like a snake."

The reason for his lack of optimism for the final day was that his title rival Sebastien Loeb, who only needs a sixth place finish to ensure a record-equalling fourth straight world title, is third and is under no pressure from Petter Solberg's Subaru behind.

Fifth is the second Citroen of Dani Sordo, who is continuing to improve on gravel events, while Chris Atkinson is sixth for Subaru.

Britain's Matthew Wilson, whose Stobart Ford was passed by Atkinson during the morning, closed back to within 0.3 seconds of the Australian on stage ten, but dropped back to seven seconds behind as the day wore on.

Manfred Stohl's Kronos Citroen continued to hold the final points place ahead of Xevi Pons' Subaru.

Jan Kopecky was unable to maintain his top ten place as he struggled to find a good set-up for his Czech Team Skoda. He lost tenth to Mads Ostberg's Adapta Subaru on stage ten and both are now being caught quickly by Latvala.

Indeed Latvala, in 12th, began the afternoon 1:41 outside the top ten, but had slodes in to within 50 seconds by the end of stage 12.

The other big gainer, Latvala's Stobart Ford team-mate Henning Solberg, continued his fightback, rising up from 31st to 18th over the afternoon.

There was bad news on stage 12 though when British competitor Stuart Jones crashed his MG at high speed.

Jones was uninjured, but his co-driver Andy Bull was taken to hospital with a suspected a suspected neck injury.

Rally organisers stopped the stage and re-routed all the remaining competitors, who were given nominal times, direct to the Cardiff SuperSpecial.

Jamie O'Leary / Eurosport