Solberg leads into day two in Japan

The Fords had a strong afternoon, with Hirvonen and Jari-Matti Latvala winning all three full-length stages, taking Hirvonen to second ahead of Citroen's Sebastien Ogier, who admitted he was not enjoying the heavily rutted stages on the second pass. Fourth-placed Latvala closed to within 1.1s of the Frenchman.

But though Ford made gains, Solberg still had enough in hand to keep his independent Citroen at the head of the field.

"It's been a great year in a way and now everything is coming together - me, the car, all the details," said the still unwell Solberg. "The stages are terrible but I'm really happy with what I've done so far.

"The times are there, now we've got to do with rally with no major problems."

Dani Sordo fell away from the podium battle as he suspected his Citroen Junior car was developing a transmission issue, but remained a comfortable fifth as Sebastien Loeb (Citroen) continued to struggle for speed. The world champion ended the day almost a minute off the lead.

"It was a really difficult day for me," said Loeb. "I have no answer. I've been pushing hard.

"The road position is the only thing - I will have a better road position but I'm not sure how much of the difference is the road position and how much is my driving. We'll see tomorrow."

In the other classes, Jari Ketomaa and Patrik Flodin have established healthy leads in the S2000 and Production contests respectively.

Ketomaa's nearest rival Martin Prokop was delayed by intercom issues and coming across Khalid Al Qassimi's big crash on the first run through Iwanke Long, while Flodin trailed Toshi Arai until the local favourite crashed on Sikot, blocking the stage and causing a half hour delay to the afternoon schedule.

Pos  Driver              Car        Time/Gap
 1.  Petter Solberg      Citroen  1h13m31.2s
 2.  Mikko Hirvonen      Ford         + 9.4s
 3.  Sebastien Ogier     Citroen     + 21.3s
 4.  Jari-Matti Latvala  Ford        + 22.4s
 5.  Dani Sordo          Citroen     + 36.5s
 6.  Sebastien Loeb      Citroen     + 54.5s
 7.  Henning Solberg     Ford      + 1m22.2s
 8.  Matthew Wilson      Ford      + 3m16.9s
 9.  Federico Villagra   Ford      + 3m46.5s
10.  Kimi Raikkonen      Citroen   + 4m03.1s