Latvala dominates Sweden day one

Ford's new signing was fastest in all of today's full-length stages, even though his lowly position in the running order was less advantageous in the afternoon, by which time most of the morning's slush had been dispersed.

"It's been a really, really good day," said Latvala. "I'm very confident and have a good feeling with my driving. I'm just enjoying it and I hope I have the same feeling tomorrow morning."

Ford continue to monopolise the leading positions, with Latvala's teammate Mikko Hirvonen in second ahead of the satellite Stobart team's Henning Solberg and Gigi Galli.

But Hirvonen did not share Latvala's confidence this afternoon. In addition to dropping a further 25 seconds behind his teammate, he also came under pressure from the Stobart duo, who set a series of top three stages times as they closed on the works car.

By the end of the day, Solberg and Galli were only eight and 13 seconds behind Hirvonen respectively.

Hirvonen felt that running first on the road (after Sebastien Loeb's retirement) had been particularly costly today.

"It's been a difficult day to be sweeping the road," he said. "There are still two long days to go. Jari-Matti has got a big lead and he's done a perfect job, so it will be difficult to catch him, but we'll try."

The stage conditions came in for plenty of criticism from drivers. Warm weather in the build-up to the rally has left little snow on the roads, and by the second loop the stages were mostly gravel and mud.

Petter Solberg remains the leading non-Ford driver in fifth, but is being caught by privateer Subaru driver Mads Ostberg. The young Norweigan was furious with himself after spinning from fourth to ninth this morning, but responded with two top five stage times in the second loop. He recovered to sixth place and is now 30 seconds behind Solberg's factory Impreza.

"I'm very happy, but it's a shame that we had the problems this morning," said Ostberg. "But that means a better road position tomorrow, so I'm happy with that and with the pace so far.

"It's amazing for me - 20 years old and trying to get my head around pushing Petter Solberg... I've been a big fan of Petter and now he's a competitor. It's a great feeling to be up there with the big boys."

The previously tight battle for the final points has now been split up by both Ostberg's speed and a series of mechanical problems for Suzuki's Toni Gardemeister and Ramsport Ford's Andreas Mikkelsen, who are now eighth and ninth behind Matthew Wilson (Stobart Ford).

Patrick Sandell completes the current top ten in the new Super 2000 Peugeot, while further back Citroen's Dani Sordo and Subaru's Chris Atkinson are running 18th and 45th following their earlier delays.

Leading positions after SS8:

Pos  Driver        Car      Time
 1.  Latvala       Ford     1h33:33.3
 2.  Hirvonen      Ford      +   48.2
 3.  H Solberg     Ford      +   56.3
 4.  Galli         Ford      + 1:02.0
 5.  P Solberg     Subaru    + 1:45.2
 6.  Ostberg       Subaru    + 2:15.1
 7.  Wilson        Ford      + 2:59.6
 8.  Gardemeister  Suzuki    + 3:21.6
 9.  Mikkelsen     Ford      + 4:05.8
10.  Sandell       Peugeot   + 5:14.6