Burns pleased with first day's progress

The Oxford driver powered his Subaru to the head of the field at half distance but then had to give way to his team mate Juha Kankkunen who banged in even faster times to confound the critics that have tried to write off the Subaru challenge in recent weeks.

'Everything has worked fantastically well today,' admitted Burns who is still seeking his first win since joining the Banbury team this season.

'The tight and twisty stages have really suited our car and I'm really happy with our performance today.'

But while Burns was dicing for the lead, fellow Brit Colin McRae was checking on to his flight home after smashing his Ford's suspension on a rock during the second stage of the day.

Ironically the incident happened on the same stage where, in last year's event, he bent a suspension arm of his Subaru and had to resort to 'bush engineering' to stay in the event.

This time McRae clouted one of the massive boulders that line the stage, flipped the car onto its side and damaged the suspension too badly for the Scot to continue.

Burns faces a tough task maintaining his advantage over tomorrow's seven stages north of Cordoba.

The sandy surfaces have tended to give an advantage to later runners and with the Subarus set to lead the pack into battle, the chasing Toyotas of Didier Auriol and Carlos Sainz may just be able to claw back into contention.