Loeb leads first morning in Italy

The reigning champion was only fourth-fastest through SS1, but then completed the 34-kilometre Crastazza stage a full 18 seconds quicker than the rest of the field and moved up to first position.

By the end of the loop of stages, Loeb led by 22.5 seconds over his Citroen teammate Dani Sordo.

"It's going well," Loeb said after SS3. "The car is okay and we have no problems. It's only the start of the rally, but it's a perfect start. Hopefully we can do better than in Jordan now."

While Loeb was hitting the front, opening stage leader Jari-Matti Latvala was losing one and a half minutes after an error in SS2 that left him with a rear puncture.

"We went just wide in a downhill right-hand corner, hit a bank when we were sliding, and eventually the air came out of the tyre and it completely broke," Latvala explained at the end of the stage. "It was my mistake."

Behind the two Citroens, Ford's Mikko Hirvonen and Subaru's Chris Atkinson currently share third place. While Hirvonen was frustrated with his car's performance while running first on the road, Atkinson was content with his start to the event.

"Obviously the guys who lost time will be coming back hard, but we'll take third for now," said the Australian. "We made a small change to the set-up and it seemed to work, so I'll try to keep going at this pace. There's still a long way to go - it's going to be tricky on the second pass."

Atkinson's teammate Petter Solberg is just six seconds further back in fifth place, ahead of Urma Aava's semi-works Citroen. The Estonian WRC rookie is at the head of a very close group, with just 10 seconds covering sixth to ninth positions.

Gigi Galli is currently seventh for Stobart Ford, having been delayed by a puncture in SS2 after initially holding third on his home event.

"It was just a puncture, nothing strange happened. We hit a bank," Galli said. "We did 20 kilometres with it, so that means the tyre is working well considering the puncture."

Suzuki's Toni Gardemeister was briefly up to sixth place thanks to a very quick time in Crastazza, and is still running strongly in eighth.

Henning Solbert (Stobart Ford) and Per-Gunnar Andersson (Suzuki) complete the initial top ten, with the delayed Latvala 2.6 seconds behind Andersson in 11th.

Leading positions after SS3:

Pos  Driver        Car      Time
 1.  Loeb          Citroen  46:16.5
 2.  Sordo         Citroen  +  22.5
 3.  Hirvonen      Ford     +  38.8
 =   Atkinson      Subaru   +  38.8
 5.  P Solberg     Subaru   +  44.3
 6.  Aava          Citroen  +1:11.5
 7.  Galli         Ford     +1:16.6
 8.  Gardemeister  Suzuki   +1:19.4
 9.  H Solberg     Ford     +1:21.9
10.  Andersson     Suzuki   +1:34.9