Loeb moves clear as Fords hit trouble

Loeb had taken the lead from Ford's Jari-Matti Latvala when the Finn lost 10 seconds with a puncture near the end of SS4 this afternoon.

Latvala rapidly regained second from Sordo, but had the position handed back to him when the Spaniard made a tactical decision to slow in SS6 and drop behind Latvala in the classification to ensure a more advantageous slot in the running order tomorrow - which was set based on positions at the end of today's final full-length stage rather then the leg-ending superspecial.

It was on the penultimate corner of SS6 that things went drastically wrong for Ford. Both Latvala and teammate Mikko Hirvonen, who was holding a distant fourth having lost time while running first on the road today, hit a deep hole that they had not been aware of in the recce or during the first loop. They suspected it had been created by other cars pulling a rock out of the surface.

After the stage both discovered that they had sustained suspension damage - Latvala to a rear corner and Hirvonen to the front end. Subaru's Chris Atkinson also picked up similar damage at the same point.

All three struggled through the road section and the subsequent superspecial, with Hirvonen effecting temporary repairs to his Ford's broken compression strut and track control arm using tie-wraps and the strap normally used to secure the spare wheel.

Although all the affected cars made it through the Tatoi superspecial, Hirvonen lost 46 seconds and Latvala dropped just over a minute. Atkinson fared better, and was just 16 seconds off the pace.

The Ford drama means that Loeb will start Saturday's stages with a 15.7-second lead over Sordo, and a minute clear of Petter Solberg, The latter has moved up to third at the end of an encouraging first day for the new Subaru Impreza, despite being unhappy with set-up changes made for the afternoon.

His brother Henning Solberg holds fourth for Stobart Ford, just seven seconds behind the Subaru, with Citroen's WRC rookie Urmo Aava up to fifth in the Estonian-backed car, having been fastest of all through the superspecial.

The delayed Latvala, Hirvonen and Atkinson complete the current points-scoring positions, while Suzuki's Per-Gunnar Andersson and Munchi's Ford driver Federico Villagra are battling for ninth.

Leading positions after day one:

Pos  Driver     Car      Time
 1.  Loeb       Citroen  1h21:34.8
 2.  Sordo      Citroen   +   15.7
 3.  P Solberg  Subaru    +   59.1
 4.  H Solberg  Ford      + 1:06.0
 5.  Aava       Citroen   + 1:15.5
 6.  Latvala    Ford      + 1:18.9
 7.  Hirvonen   Ford      + 1:36.4
 8.  Atkinson   Subaru    + 1:36.8
 9.  Andersson  Suzuki    + 2:23.8
10.  Villagra   Ford      + 2:29.3