Citroen 1-2-3 after leg one in Spain

Gronholm had edged away from Loeb during the opening stages, as the Kronos Citroen driver worked to get the car's handling to his liking.

A tight contest looked in prospect, until Gronholm slowed dramatically in SS5 with a loss of turbo boost. He continued through the last two stages of leg one but lost 2:33.6 to Loeb.

With Gronholm's team-mate Mikko Hirvonen hitting similar problems at virtually the same point and falling from fourth place to outside the top ten, Citroen took control of the top three.

Reigning Junior WRC champion and local hero Dani Sordo is now second, 27.7 seconds behind Loeb, with Xavier Pons third.

Ford's dramas also elevated the struggling Subarus up the leaderboard. Petter Solberg reported no particular problems with his Impreza, just a general lack of speed compared to the BF Goodrich shod cars. He ended the leg in fourth.

Stephane Sarrazin made major changes to his Subaru during the lunchtime service and was more comfortable with the handling by the end of the day. His team-mate Chris Atkinson, driving a 2005 Impreza this weekend, was the happiest of the Subaru trio, feeling that he had improved his personal performance since last year's event.

Privateers Alex Bengue (Peugeot 307) and Jan Kopecky (Skoda Fabia) were among the stars of the opening day. They set consistently fast stage times while battling with each other, and will start the day with fourth placed Solberg in their sights.

Other leading independent drivers had a tougher time. Francois Duval lost the brakes on his Skoda during SS1, Gilles Panizzi spent the whole day chasing a set-up, and Jari-Matti Latvala crashed in SS4 and will have to restart under SupeRally rules tomorrow.

Leading results after leg one:

Pos  Driver      Make     Time
 1.  Loeb        Citroen  1h 16:07.0
 2.  Sordo       Citroen  + 27.3
 3.  Pons        Citroen  + 1:01.5
 4.  Solberg     Subaru   + 1:25.6
 5.  Bengue      Peugeot  + 1:32.6
 6.  Kopecky     Skoda    + 1:36.0
 7.  Sarrazin    Subaru   + 1:50.4
 8.  Atkinson    Subaru   + 2:25.5
 9.  Duval       Skoda    + 2:32.3
10.  Gronholm    Ford     + 2:33.6
11.  Stohl       Peugeot  + 2:54.9
12.  Wilson      Ford     + 4:22.4
13.  Aigner      Skoda    + 4:51.7
14.  Hirvonen    Ford     + 5:08.5
15.  Panizzi     Skoda    + 5:32.8
16.  Vojtech     Peugeot  + 6:06.5
17.  Prokop      Citroen  + 9:15.5
18.  Betti       Renault  + 10:13.2
19.  Beres       Suzuki   + 10:48.0
20.  Kosciuszko  Subaru   + 11:25.8