Henning Solberg tops superspecial

The Stobart Ford driver beat the factory Citroen team's Dani Sordo by 0.1 seconds, with works Ford man Mikko Hirvonen only a further 0.1s behind in third place.

"Wow, that was an amazing start to the event," said Solberg. "This was fantastic tonight and it's now the first time that I have ever led a rally. The stage was really good fun and there were so many people shouting and cheering when I beat Dani, I think it was the closest race they had seen all night.

"The car felt brilliant during the shakedown today and I hope we can keep the speed up tomorrow on the proper stages but I'm just so happy to have been quickest tonight and beaten the real tarmac drivers."

Sebastien Loeb completed the top four for Citroen, ahead of Ford's Jari-Matti Latvala.

Marcus Gronholm began his return to the World Rally Championship with sixth place in the Prodrive Subaru.

"It's okay but I would have liked to be a little bit smoother and have less understeer, but it was not possible," he said.

Federico Villagra was seventh for Munchi's Ford, with Petter Solberg (Solberg Citroen), Mads Ostberg (Adapta Subaru) and Sebastien Ogier (Citroen Junior) filling the rest of the top ten places.

The rally gets underway in earnest with six gravel stages tomorrow.

Pos  Driver              Car      Time
 1.  Henning Solberg     Ford     2m09.6s
 2.  Dani Sordo          Citroen   + 0.1s
 3.  Mikko Hirvonen      Ford      + 0.2s
 4.  Sebastien Loeb      Citroen   + 1.2s
 5.  Jari-Matti Latvala  Ford      + 2.9s
 6.  Marcus Gronholm     Subaru    + 4.5s
 7.  Federico Villagra   Ford      + 5.6s
 8.  Petter Solberg      Citroen   + 5.9s
 9.  Mads Ostberg        Subaru    + 7.0s
10.  Sebastien Ogier     Citroen   + 7.3s