Day 1am: Gronholm builds early lead

The world champion is desperate to win the event for a fourth straight year to get his title bid back on track. In typical Gronholm fashion he was quick from the start, despite running third on the rock-strewn road, setting fastest times on SS2 and SS3.

"Everything's OK and we're just driving normally," said Gronholm. "We've got no real problems, but there's quite a lot of loose gravel on the road. We'll keep going at this pace but the conditions are fairly slippery."

Loeb put in a highly impressive showing, given his lack of experience on the Australian stages. The Frenchman set the fastest time on SS5 and SS6, although he was left to rue a mistake on SS3 when a spin cost him about seven seconds.

After setting the fastest time on the opening superspecial yesterday, Petter Solberg sits third after an amazingly consistent performance. The Norwegian set the second fastest time on three of the morning's five stages, and added a third fastest time on SS3. However, he will be dissapointed with his performance on SS4, where he could only manage the fourth fastest time. With Loeb fastest on this stage, Solberg dropped 18.7s, and lost second place, to the Citroen star.

Richard Burns lies fourth after battling against his road position, although he is already 38s off Peugeot team-mate Gronholm's pace. Because he leads the championship, the Briton has the honour of running first on the road, a real handicap on the stages down under. "We could do with some rain to even things out," admitted Burns.

Tommi Makinen lies fifth, 51.4s off the leader's pace but just 1.6s ahead of the second Citroen of Carlos Sainz. Markko Martin is over a minute down on Gronholm, despite taking victory on SS4. The Ford star lost around 30s when he took the wrong direction at a road junction on SS3, and then lost a similar amount of time in slightly damp conditions on SS6.

Harri Rovanpera rounds out the top eight, after struggling with gearbox problems for most of the morning. Ninth place Colin McRae encountered similar difficulties, not what he needed as he fights for his WRC life.