Latvala takes early lead in Greece

While his championship-leading Ford teammate Mikko Hirvonen has struggled on the rough and dusty roads as he is at the head of the running order, Latvala
has made the most of his slightly more favourable stage conditions and has been fastest in two of the morning's stages.

"I'm quite satisfied," Latvala said after SS3. "The feeling is good and the car is working well, so let's try to keep it going."

Loeb was only fourth after stage one, but was fastest in SS2 and closed to within 1.5 seconds of Latvala before the Ford edged away again in Psatha 1.

Although Loeb lost time to the leader in that stage, he did manage to claim second from his Citroen teammate Dani Sordo, who had been Latvala's closest rival initially. The Spaniard remains within six seconds of the lead.

"Sebastien was faster, but I didn't take a lot of risks because there were a lot of stones in the stage. I'm happy," said Sordo.

Hirvonen currently holds fourth, 26 seconds behind Latvala. Although he damaged his exhaust slightly on a rock in SS2, the Finn is content with his performance given the road conditions and hopes that the problem will ease when the stages are repeated after service.

"There were some very big stones, but the car was tough enough to take it," he said. "We'll see how it's going to be this afternoon, but I'll just try to hang on for today if I can."

Petter Solberg and Chris Atkinson completed the morning in fifth and eighth positions respectively as they acclimatised to the long-awaited new Subaru Impreza WRC08, with Solberg just 1.4 seconds behind Hirvonen.

"It's getting better and better," said Solberg after setting the fourth-fastest time in SS3. "It's very different, but it seems to be working well."

Between the Subarus, Urmo Aava briefly ran a strong sixth in the semi-works Citroen, before slipping back to seventh behind Stobart Ford's Henning Solberg.

The Norweigan is the only one of the Stobart trio to have enjoyed a trouble-free morning. Gigi Galli had a spin in SS1 and then stopped with broken suspension in the next test, while Matthew Wilson ran an encouraging seventh at first, then lost nearly a minute with a broken driveshaft in SS3.

Privateer Subaru driver Mads Ostberg has also retired after stopping in SS2, having held an impressive eighth place following stage one.

Suzuki's Per-Gunnar Andersson recovered from brake worries to move up to ninth by the end of the morning, ahead of Munchi's Ford driver Federico Villagra. Andersson's teammate Toni Gardemeister is just outside the top ten after suffering fuel pump problems in SS2 and a stall in SS3.

Leading positions after SS3:

Pos  Driver     Car      Time
 1.  Latvala    Ford     39:22.5
 2.  Loeb       Citroen  +   4.2
 3.  Sordo      Citroen  +   6.2
 4.  Hirvonen   Ford     +  26.2
 5.  P Solberg  Subaru   +  27.4
 6.  H Solberg  Ford     +  34.4
 7.  Aava       Citroen  +  39.6
 8.  Atkinson   Subaru   +  45.7
 9.  Andersson  Suzuki   +1:03.4
10.  Villagra   Ford     +1:04.4