THE CUMBRIAN-based BP-Ford World Rally team achieved their first win of the 2007 World Rally Championship when Marcus Gronholm and Timo Rautiainen powered to victory in the Swedish Rally.

Gronholm's 26th career win closed the gap to the championship leaders to just a point.

The Finns won 11 of the 20 snow and ice-bound speed tests as temperatures plummeted to -22C and eventually finished 53.8 seconds clear of Sebastien Loeb.

Team-mates Mikko Hirvonen and Jarmo Lehtinen finishged third in another Ford Focus RS.

Team manager Malcom Wilson said: "It was a dominant display from Marcus. He made his move midway through the second leg when he extended his lead over Loeb by early 20 seconds and from that moment he was in charge."

Gronholm said: "It was a perfect weekend with no problems for the car or my driving.

"It's my fifth wins here and that's an achievement I'm proud of. "

Meanwhile,the Stobart VK M-Sport Ford team had its best ever result in a WRC event, as Henning Solberg and Cato Menkerud finished fourth.

Solberg's fourth position added to Ford's manufacturer dominance in Sweden as one of three Focus RS 06 cars in the top four.

It was an unfortunate end to the rally for team mates Jari-Matti Latvala/Miikka Anttila and Matthew Wilson/Michael Orr, with the pair out of the event before the completion of stage 16.

A massive drop in temperature overnight caused an engine breather pipe in the Ford Focus RS 06 to freeze resulting in a build-up of pressure in the car's engine and the loss of its oil.

Rather than risking their attack on Norway, the decision was made to retire the cars from the event today. Its was a disappointing end to the rally in which both competitors had been driving well and setting impressive and consistent stage times.

Matthew Wilson said: "I can't believe what happened today, it's not a good end to the rally for me. Quite early in the stage the car started to miss-fire so we stopped and made some adjustments to try and fix the problem.

"This worked for a while but after another few kilometres the oil warning light came on, so we stopped. This is not how I wanted my rally to finish but it was out of my hands, but I can't wait to get started in Norway next weekend and hopefully improve on my performance from here."

"