(gearbox issues) Spain (technical failure) and Australia (damaged suspension) and although he tied with Solberg on 71 points, the Norwegian pipped him to second with more wins (3-2) so Grönholm finished third. At the end of the year Peugeot left the championship and Grönholm needed to find a new team. 2006–2007: Ford For the 2006 season, Grönholm switched to the Ford team, driving their all-new 2006-specification Focus RS WRC. On his debut, in January, he won his first ever tarmac rally in Monte Carlo, beating Sébastien Loeb by over a minute, albeit beaten by the Frenchman on the road with the championship's unliked 'Superally' regulations coming to his rescue as a shunt for the Citroën hastened its exit from Leg One. Although he was to follow this up with an entirely credible win in the second event of the season, Sweden, subsequent events saw Loeb surge past into a comfortable lead: the Frenchman was to never finish below second place in every event he entered, while his adversary was left to rue a string of retirements and errors that stymied his challenge. In the meantime, the hopeful Grönholm collected victories over Loeb in Greece and Finland. Loeb's hopes seemed to be coming to fruition when yet another victory in Cyprus brought him to the brink of the title; however he was to suffer his own blow days later when injury from a biking accident forced him out of the last four rounds of the series. Grönholm was able to push within one point of the lead in the total standings as Loeb recovered, but his claim to the title was finally extinguished when he rolled out of contention on the first leg of the penultimate event in Australia. Some solace for Grönholm, though, came in that another victory in New Zealand ahead of teammate Mikko Hirvonen was to confirm the manufacturers' title for his Ford team over Loeb-less Kronos Citroën. The 2007 season started in good fashion for Grönholm. He claimed third place in the 75ème Rallye Automobile de Monte-Carlo behind the dominant returning works Citroens, and then the top spot in the Swedish Rally, mirroring the previous year's result. While the usually consummate Loeb tumbled out of the points from a potentially auspicious position in both Norway and Sardinia, Grönholm remained consistent and after winning for the 28th time in his career over the Citroen titan in Greece, led