Marcus Gronholm is on course to win the Swedish Rally and extend his lead in the world championship after taming the snowy roads today.
The Ford driver, who won round one in Monte Carlo, built on his overnight advantage with five consecutive stage wins to stretch his lead towards the half-minute mark.
World champion Sebastien Loeb, driving a Citroen, responded with two fastest times at the end of the day to keep Gronholm in sight, 25.1 seconds away.
Gronholm and Loeb, both two-time world champions, are in a class of their own at the front, with their nearest challenger two minutes 32.7secs off the lead.
Daniel Carlsson only received clearance to start the rally at the last minute after receiving the support of his rivals, but he made them regret that decision by moving into third place.
The Peugeot driver spent all day fighting Mitsubishi driver Gianluigi Galli, eventually ending the second leg of the rally with a slender 0.3secs advantage.
Former DTM champion Mattias Ekstrom faces a stern test if he is to hold on to his fifth position.
The Red Bull Skoda driver is just 0.1secs ahead of Janne Tuohino, who put on a storming drive today to move into the points in sixth in his Citroen.
He was helped by problems for the OMV Peugeot team, who suffered a corner to forget on stage 11.
Henning Solberg, who had been on course for points, crashed to be followed just a few minutes later by team-mate Manfred Stohl.
Solberg was able to continue despite heavy damage, dropping to ninth while Stohl incurred a five-minute penalty for being unable to complete the stage and he lies 16th.
Kristian Sohlberg is seventh while Thomas Radstrom, in another independent Subaru, moved back into the points today, taking advantage of OMV Peugeot's problems to move into eighth.
Teenager Matthew Wilson suffered a problem on stage 10 when he set the 55th fastest time and lost three minutes.
As a result the 18-year-old, from Cumbria, lost some ground overall and dropped to 17th in his Stobart Ford, 11 minutes away from Gronholm's pace.
But British hopes of success in the junior class were dashed this morning when Suzuki's Guy Wilks lost nearly half an hour to drop out of the reckoning.
