Gronholm takes early lead

Most of the Ford driver's advantage came from his fastest time through the opening Querol 1 stage, where he set the pace by 6.1 seconds while Loeb struggled a little with brake problems.

Having made some adjustments on the following road section, Loeb expected to fight back in el Montmell, but instead found himself losing another 1.2 seconds to the flying Gronholm.

"The car is very good and my driving is quite okay, so I'm happy to be in front of Sebastien," said Gronholm. "Normally he always finds something in the service and then comes out and sets fantastic times, so I hope we can respond."

Gronholm's team-mate Mikko Hirvonen is already locked in a battle for third with local hero Dani Sordo, with just 1.5 seconds between them as they head for the first service.

Petter Solberg dropped over half a minute to the leaders in the opening stages, hampered by both brake problems and a lack of grip on the smoother parts of the course.

Rally Mexico hero Gareth MacHale hit more serious trouble, crashing out during SS1.

Leading times after SS1: 

Pos  Driver    Make     Time
 1.  Gronholm  Ford     26:12.3
 2.  Loeb      Citroen  + 7.3
 3.  Hirvonen  Ford     + 17.7
 4.  Sordo     Citroen  + 18.9
 5.  Pons      Citroen  + 31.6
 6.  Solberg   Subaru   + 33.0
 7.  Kopecky   Skoda    + 37.6
 8.  Sarrazin  Subaru   + 45.7
 9.  Latvala   Ford     + 49.1
10.  Atkinson  Subaru   + 49.2
11.  Duval     Skoda    + 53.4
12.  Panizzi   Skoda    + 57.4
13.  Stohl     Peugeot  + 1:04.7
14.  Aigner    Skoda    + 1:38.9
15.  Wilson    Ford     + 1:45.5
16.  Vojtech   Peugeot  + 2:12.8
17.  Meeke     Citroen  + 2:56.0
18.  Prokop    Citroen  + 3:09.7
19.  Pressac   Citroen  + 3:25.8
20.  Bernd     Renault  + 3:26.1