Andersson wins Swedish superspecial

This is set to be a one-off World Rally Championship appearance for Andersson, who relied on donations from supporters to get into a Ford for the season-opener before focusing on his Proton Intercontinental Rally Challenge drive for the rest of the year.

But after winning the opening stage, and knowing that he will start tomorrow's potentially very snowy stages in an advantageous 11th place in the running order, Andersson is feeling very confident.

"It's good, it's good. We should be in the top five at least after the first day," he said.

"I was taking it very, very steadily and carefully around here and I didn't know if I was driving too slowly or not. Obviously not."

Works Ford driver Jari-Matti Latvala was second, 0.6 seconds slower than Andersson, with Petter Solberg (Solberg Citroen) a cautious third - eager to avoid a repeat of his costly spin on this stage 12 months ago.

Mikko Hirvonen was fourth, and though he only lost 1.0s to Andersson, he was troubled by a gearbox glitch.

"It was okay, but we had a little problem with the gear change," he said. "It didn't work like it should so we lost time with that."

Factory Citroen duo Sebastien Loeb and Sebastien Ogier drove conservatively to fifth and seventh, split by Stobart Ford's new signing Mads Ostberg.

Kimi Raikkonen was 10th in the Ice 1 Citroen, just behind Production class leaders Anders Grondal and Patrik Flodin.

The only frontrunner to hit trouble on the stage was Stobart's Henning Solberg, who lost 15s with a spin, leaving him 32nd at present.

Pos  Driver              Car      Time/Gap
 1.  P-G Andersson       Ford     1m39.7s
 2.  Jari-Matti Latvala  Ford      + 0.6s
 3.  Petter Solberg      Citroen   + 0.9s
 4.  Mikko Hirvonen      Ford      + 1.0s
 5.  Sebastien Loeb      Citroen   + 1.1s
 6.  Mads Ostberg        Ford      + 1.6s
 7.  Sebastien Ogier     Citroen   + 2.3s
 8.  Anders Grondal      Subaru    + 5.9s
 9.  Patrik Flodin       Subaru    + 6.0s
10.  Kimi Raikkonen      Citroen   + 6.1s