Hirvonen takes early lead in Japan

Factory Ford duo Hirvonen and Jari-Matti Latvala are 6.9 seconds apart in first and second places, while Stobart Ford's Francois Duval presently occupies the third place that Loeb requires to clinch a record fifth consecutive World Rally Championship title this weekend.

Loeb made a very conservative start in the cold and muddy conditions and was only sixth fastest through SS1. But he then picked up his pace and ended the loop with a stage win in Pipao 1, putting him 13.1 seconds behind Hirvonen.

"No problem, I'm just driving carefully," Loeb said after SS2. "It's very tricky, difficult to take a rhythm. In this stage I tried a bit harder. The first stage was very muddy, in this one there was some gravel to clear, but my driving was better in this one."

With the Isepo stage cancelled because the road had deteriorated due to snowfall earlier in the week, the first loop consisted of only three stages rather than four. Hirvonen won SS1 and SS2, before losing 2.3 seconds to Loeb in the short but treacherous SS4.

"It's been a good morning," he said at the end of SS4. "That stage was very slippery and in a few corners I took it too carefully and lost some time. But it's going okay, no problem."

Latvala was frustrated to drop seven seconds to his teammate in the first two stages, but trimmed a second from Hirvonen's lead in Pipao.

"Now it's getting better," he said. "Unfortunately in the first and second stages I was a little bit locked in myself. I expect the fight to get harder. You'll need to really go fast if you want to fight for victory in this rally."

Duval is 10.6 seconds adrift of Hirvonen in third, but his initial 6.3-second advantage over Loeb has now dwindled to 2.5 seconds.

Loeb's Citroen teammate Dani Sordo completes the early top five, while Matthew Wilson (Stobart Ford) is producing one of his strongest performances yet to hold sixth ahead of the Subarus, having been fifth - in front of Loeb - following SS1. The Briton was less happy with his speed through SS2 and SS4 though, feeling his pace notes were not quite adequate.

Subaru are under pressure to get a strong result on home ground, but at present Petter Solberg and Chris Atkinson are only seventh and ninth, split by Suzuki's Per-Gunnar Andersson, and nearly half a minute off the lead.

However Solberg remains optimistic.

"We are trying, and we are getting better and better," he said. "It's a long, long rally and you have to be a little bit cautious at the start. We are pushing."

Andersson has set an encouraging pace for Suzuki, despite being troubled by a clutch problem, and is 20 seconds clear of his tenth-placed teammate Toni Gardemeister, who is just 0.2 seconds in front of Munchi's Ford driver Henning Solberg.

The small 13-car WRC field has already been affected by attrition. Conrad Rautenbach (PH Citroen) crashed out in SS1, and Federico Villagra (Munchi's Ford) is running amongst the Production cars following early driveshaft and gearbox problems.

Leading positions after SS4:

Pos  Driver                Car      Time
 1.  Mikko Hirvonen        Ford     21:41.7
 2.  Jari-Matti Latvala    Ford      +  6.9
 3.  Francois Duval        Ford      + 10.6
 4.  Sebastien Loeb        Citroen   + 13.1
 5.  Dani Sordo            Citroen   + 17.5
 6.  Matthew Wilson        Ford      + 24.5
 7.  Petter Solberg        Subaru    + 25.3
 8.  Per-Gunnar Andersson  Suzuki    + 27.2
 9.  Chris Atkinson        Subaru    + 31.6
10.  Toni Gardemeister     Suzuki    + 47.7