Atkinson leads Solberg in Greece

Atkinson and Petter Solberg took advantage of their later position on the road to move ahead of the Ford pair of Mikko Hirvonen and Marcus Gronholm, who had taken their form from Thursday night into the first stage on Friday.

The pace of the Subarus might not be purely down to their position on the road though, as Solberg was fastest in the shakedown on Thursday.

Gronholm struggled for the rest of the morning due to being the first car on the road after taking the fastest time in SS2, and he has dropped to fourth behind his teammate, and 13 seconds away from Atkinson.

Dani Sordo is the lead Citroen in fifth place, as Sebastien Loeb struggled with being the second car on the road on the dusty stages.

The reigning world champion is currently sixth, but he is already 18 seconds off the lead.

There is a gap of nearly 10 seconds between the top six and the rest of the field, which is currently led by Henning Solberg.

The Ford driver's position is relatively safe at the moment, and Jari-Matti Latvala's eighth place is not under much threat from Manfred Stohl either.

Pos  Driver          Make       Time  
 1.  Atkinson        Subaru     43:12.9
 2.  Solberg         Subaru     + 03.9
 3.  Hirvonen        Ford       + 08.3
 4.  Gronholm        Ford       + 13.0
 5.  Sordo           Citroen    + 15.3
 6.  Loeb            Citroen    + 18.7
 7.  Solberg         Ford       + 27.8
 8.  Latvala         Ford       + 39.3
 9.  Stohl           Citroen    + 1:01.2
10.  Perez Companc   Ford       + 1:16.3