Day 1am: Gronholm leads
Former world champion Marcus Gronholm and the new Peugeot 307 WRC were the stars of the show on the opening morning of the World Rally Championship. The Finn leads the Monte Carlo Rally by 8.2secs ahead of last year's WRC runner-up Sebastien Loeb
After SS1 was cancelled because too many spectators were lining the stage, the event finally got going on SS2, the 20.18km Piegut-Urtis 1 run, which was covered in hard, packed ice. Gronholm blitzed the field by 9.9s on the test, holding sway from Markko Martin (Ford) and Citroen's Sebastien Loeb.
The Selonnet-Breziers stage (the cancelled SS1) had been cleared by the time SS3 was due to start, and Martin chipped into Gronholm's lead by 0.8secs. The star of this stage, however, was Mitsubishi's Gianluigi Galli who was an impressive fourth fastest in the new Lancer WRC, which is also making its debut on the Monte.
Citroen got its act together by SS4, a re-run of the opening Piegut-Urtis stage. Loeb stopped the clocks 1.8secs ahead of team-mate Carlos Sainz. Gronholm lost 8.4secs to Loeb here, and the Frenchman stole second place from Martin thanks to his scorching time.
Martin's team-mate Francois Duval is fourth, ahead of Sainz, Hyundai privateer Roman Kresta and reigning champion Petter Solberg, whose title defence started badly when he struck a fence on the opening stage.
There are another two stages this afternoon, so stay tuned to autosport.com for all the latest reports, and also check out our live rally timings for up-to-the-minute news.
1 Marcus Gronholm (Peugeot 307)
2 Sebastien Loeb (Citroen Xsara) +8.2secs
3 Markko Martin (Ford Focus) +11.4secs
4 Francois Duval (Ford Focus) +27.2secs
5 Carlos Sainz (Citroen Xsara) +33.2secs
6 Roman Kresta (Hyundai Accent) +1m02.3s
7 Petter Solberg (Subaru Impreza) +1m14.4s
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