latter marque, championship newcomers for 1999, that he began to enjoy such meteoric success. 1999–2005: Peugeot After suffering an engine failure on the season-opening round in Monte Carlo in 2000, he took his first championship win on the Swedish Rally the following month, with the 206 WRC. Consequent wins, including on his home round of the series, were sufficient to see off closest points challenger, Subaru's Richard Burns and land a shock first title after finishing second to the Englishman in the Rally of Great Britain. After an irksome and unsuccessful championship defense in 2001 during which assorted mechanical problems kept him down to fourth overall in the points table, he easily won his second title in 2002. In 2003 Peugeot stuck with the same lineup as 2002 (Grönholm, Burns, Panizzi and Rovanperä) and also the 206. The only change was that the team now had major sponsorship from cigarette giants Marlboro painting the cars red and white. However the 206 was now four years old and showing its age. Grönholm covered this with three wins in Sweden, New Zealand and Argentina (the latter after an incident with a bank which dropped him to as low as 6th); however fuel pressure issues in Greece and a broken Propshaft in Cyprus meant Grönholm lost valuable points. A second in Germany was followed by accidents in Finland, Australia and Italy and by this stage he had fallen to sixth in the Championship. Fourth in France and sixth in Spain after a wrong tire choice was followed by another crash in Great Britain when he hit a pile of logs on a stage. The police soon caught him and despite his best efforts Grönholm was forbidden to go back to service. He finished sixth with 46 points. In 2004 Peugeot introduced the new 307 to replace the 206, but the car was plagued by gearbox and power steering woes throughout the season. Grönholm took an immediate dislike to the new car because of its poor reliability, battling gearbox problems in Monte Carlo and power steering issues in Sweden. After more power steering woes in Mexico he stated "I'm fed up with this car". An eventful second in New Zealand was followed by heartbreak in Cyprus: Here Grönholm thought he had taken the 307's first win but after the event both he and teammate Harri Rovanperä (who finished fifth) were disqualified for illegal water