Hirvonen leads in New Zealand

Hirvonen's teammate Jari-Matti Latvala was quickest through the opening test, but it was the elder Finn who took charge in SS2, which was split into two separate stages labelled SS2.1 and SS2.2 due to recent storm damage.

While Latvala confessed to being "a little bit too sideways" in the first half of the stage, Hirvonen was fastest in both segments and established a 5.3-second lead over his teammate as they headed for service.

"It's going quite well," said Hirvonen. "It's really nice, I've never had such a good rhythm in New Zealand, I've always found it difficult. But it's going okay now, it's a good start."

Championship leader Sebastien Loeb holds third place and remains in touch with the Fords despite running first on the road. The Citroen driver went off course briefly in SS1 yet remains within 9.3 seconds of Hirvonen.

"In the two last stages it was okay, no problem, but it's very, very slippery," Loeb said.

"I felt like I completely stopped in the stage, but when I saw the times of the others, they were not much better. It's really very slippery with a lot of gravel and hard tyres, so it's not easy to keep the car on the road. At the moment it's not so bad, but I think it will be quite difficult to win this one."

His teammate Dani Sordo completes the initial top four, just 1.6 seconds behind Loeb.

Subaru have been unable to match the Fords and Citroens in the opening stages, with Chris Atkinson the best of the Impreza drivers in fifth, 34.9 seconds behind Hirvonen and reasonably content with his pace relative to the rest of the field.

"When you look at it, it's better than we expected," said Atkinson. "Okay, we're losing time to the leaders and obviously we want to be with them, but we've got to work on that."

However his teammate Petter Solberg fared worse, dropping 80 seconds to the leaders with an unspecified problem which he declined to comment on after the stages.

"I'm doing what I can now and trying to get the best times, but unfortunately this is how it is and I can't do more than this," said Solberg.

Francois Duval, substituting for the injured Gigi Galli at Stobart Ford, semi-works Citroen driver Urmo Aava, and Suzuki's Per-Gunnar Andersson complete the current top eight, followed by Duval's teammate Matthew Wilson and Solberg.

Only two WRC drivers have hit notable problems so far. Toni Gardemeister (Suzuki) went off the road and lost over a minute in SS1, while Munchi's Ford driver Henning Solberg has had to drive without power steering all morning and is already seven and a half minutes off the pace.

Leading positions after SS2.2:

Pos  Driver     Car       Time
 1.  Hirvonen   Ford      46:35.3
 2.  Latvala    Ford      +   5.3
 3.  Loeb       Citroen   +   9.4
 4.  Sordo      Citroen   +  11.0
 5.  Atkinson   Subaru    +  34.9
 6.  Duval      Ford      +  45.3
 7.  Aava       Citroen   +  53.7
 8.  Andersson  Suzuki    +1:10.9
 9.  Wilson     Ford      +1:21.1
10.  P Solberg  Subaru    +1:22.6