Ford hand Loeb the lead in Turkey

The world champion was set to finish the day in fourth place, having struggled to keep up with the leaders while cleaning the dusty road for those behind during today's stages.

However, Ford were unwilling to risk giving Loeb more favourable stage conditions on Saturday, so factory duo Mikko Hirvonen and Jari-Matti Latvala, and Stobart Ford's Gigi Galli - who had been running first, second and third - all slowed to a crawl near the end of today's final stage to ensure that they fell behind Loeb in the times.

Galli's Stobart teammate Henning Solberg, who had been in fifth place and was on course to pass Loeb, also backed off as part of the strategy but still managed to be fastest through the stage and found himself in second overall.

The tactics mean that Loeb will be first on the road again tomorrow, with just 2.2 seconds now covering the Citroen driver, Solberg, Latvala and Galli in first to fourth places. Hirvonen fell right back to fifth, seven seconds adrift of Loeb, but with a guarantee of much more favourable roads for tomorrow.

Loeb put a brave face on Ford's tactics and the prospect of cleaning the stages again during leg two.

"What can I do?" he shrugged. "In my position I can only drive and wait and see. They are behind, so if they want to do some strategy, they have my time, and I don't have their time. It doesn't matter."

Hirvonen had no qualms about the decision to drop back.

"For me, I feel it's easier if I'm behind Sebastien and then I can attack him," he said.

Latvala was also pleased with the outcome of the strategy, despite admitting that he nearly went off while slowing in SS9.

"It's a good starting point for tomorrow," he asid. "We made a team decision that we didn't want to be the first car on the road. But that last stage was so difficult to drive - I just tried to drive not too fast and had moments because of that."

However, the Finn warned that Loeb would still be hard to beat despite his position in the running order.

"Sebastien Loeb is a very strong driver when he's the first car on the road, so it's going to be a very interesting battle tomorrow", he said.

Behind the lead group, Petter Solberg continues to run sixth for Subaru, and the leaders' tactical driving means he is now just 49 seconds away from the front.

Matthew Wilson remains seventh in the third Stobart Ford, but is now under pressure from Citroen's Dani Sordo, as the Spaniard recovers after damaging his suspension this morning.

Despite briefly dislocating his shoulder earlier in the day, Suzuki's Toni Gardemeister is setting competitive times and has closed on ninth-placed Federico Villagra (Munchi's Ford).

But Gardemeister's teammate Per-Gunnar Andersson has fallen to 12th place after losing over four minutes with suspension problems in the last stage of the leg.

Leading positions after day one:

Pos  Driver        Car      Time
 1.  Loeb          Citroen  2h02:35.2
 2.  H Solberg     Ford      +    1.0
 3.  Latvala       Ford      +    1.1
 4.  Galli         Ford      +    2.2
 5.  Hirvonen      Ford      +    6.9
 6.  P Solberg     Subaru    +   49.1
 7.  Wilson        Ford      + 1:05.9
 8.  Sordo         Citroen   + 1:06.8
 9.  Villagra      Ford      + 2:17.2
10.  Gardemeister  Suzuki    + 2:27.1