SS8: Gronholm extends lead

Marcus Gronholm extended his lead of the Rally of Britain and moved a step closer to a record-equalling sixth win of the season on Saturday. The Peugeot driver set the fastest time on Saturday's 54.69 kilometre opening stage, Resolfen, the longest of the event.

RESULTS: Stage 8 results and latest standings

The Finn, who has yet to be beaten on any of the rally's long forest stages, now leads by one minute and seven seconds.

Ford's Markko Martin regained second place overall from Norwegian Petter Solberg, of Subaru, after setting the fifth best time, with Spaniard Carlos Sainz fourth for Ford.

Gronholm headed a Peugeot one-two-three through Resolfen with Briton Richard Burns second quickest over five seconds behind and Finn Harri Rovanpera third.

Burns, who lost around one-and-a-half minutes after a crash on Friday, has now moved up to sixth overall. He is just 9.8 seconds behind fifth place Rovanpera, but remains over two minutes adrift of Gronholm.

"I just didn't have a good feeling for the car in that stage and wasn't able to push in some sections as hard as I would have liked," said Burns.

Briton Colin McRae, who also lost over a minute in a crash in his Ford on Friday, was seventh fastest through Resolfen and is now eighth overall after dropping behind Burns. Four-time world champion Tommi Makinen is now seventh.

German driver Armin Schwarz lost 10 minutes in Resolfen when he had to stop to put out a fire on his Hyundai when the car's exhaust disintegrated. "I was going down a long straight and I could smell burning," said Schwarz. "The car was filled with smoke and then there were flames inside. I said ' okay now we stop'."

"I also had to stop my team-mate Juha Kankkunen to borrow his fire extinguisher because ours had run out."

Kankkunen said: "Another 30 seconds and the whole car would have gone up."