Day 1am: Loeb in charge

Heading into the rally, Loeb was concerned he would be at a disadvantage because, as championship leader, he is the first runner on the course and would act as 'sweeper' for the rest of the field. But fortunately for the Citroen driver, the first stage of the day, the 28.98km run through Phaselis 1, was damp. This has had the effect of binding the gravel together and seemingly failed to hinder the Frenchman, who finished the stage 3.2s quicker than anyone else.

Peugeot's Gronholm was second quickest while Subaru's Petter Solberg had a spin which dropped him 13s behind Loeb.

The Norwegian pulled it together in the second stage of the day though - the 34.24km Silyon 1. While Loeb was quickest once again, defending champion Solberg ran him close finishing 3.3s off the Citroen star. Gronholm was third quickest on the stage but still holds onto his second place overall.

With just three stages completed, the event has already turned into a three-horse race with fourth-placed Carlos Sainz (Citroen) a massive 58.7s behind Loeb.

Subaru's Mikko Hirvonen is fifth overall while Ford has had a grim start to its campaign with Francois Duval and Markko Martin sixth and seventh respectively, both over a minute off the pace of Loeb. The duo both blamed their lack of pace on choosing the wrong tyre.

"Our tyres were too hard for the conditions," said Duval. "Conditions have changed a lot since the recce, but, without gravel crews, we could only guess how wet the roads would be. They were very wet and quite dangerous in places. We had many lucky escapes. I estimate we could have gone off the road on about 10 different occasions."

"We based our tyre selection on the information that we had," Martin added. "But we didn't get the lottery right. It's impossible to drive on the limit with the wrong tyres. We're a long way behind the leaders and it's going to be another guess as to what tyres we choose for the next two stages."

Peugeot's Harri Rovanpera is faring even worse. Having lost huge amounts of time on the first stage, the Finn lost even more in the second and is ninth overall, 1m44.3s behind Loeb.