Latvala takes early Sardinia lead

Latvala's incident-packed start to 2009 has left him only seventh in the championship at present - and therefore seventh onto the dusty stages this morning.

The cleaner surface helped him to take two stage victories and head the field, despite a few issues with his Ford.

"I'm not so happy at the moment," Latvala admitted after SS2. "I have a problem with the braking where it feels like the engine wants to stall, and it's affecting my driving quite a lot."

Ford held a one-two for the first two stages with Latvala and team-mate Mikko Hirvonen, the latter lacking confidence on the slippery roads, but Loeb put his Citroen between them with a good time on SS3.

"It's very slippery and being first on the road is very difficult, but that's how it is," said the championship leader.

Petter Solberg holds fourth in his Citroen Xsara, despite huge frustration on the first stage when his engine began to overheat and went into a conservative setting while matching the works Fords' pace.

"It's terrible - bloody hell, we would have won the stage easily," he raged at the end of SS1.

Citroen number two Dani Sordo is already a minute behind the leaders. He picked up a penalty for being late into the first stage - insisting this was due to a turbo problem rather than, as Hirvonen suspected, early tactics - and then lost more time when he hit a large rock and damaged a damper on SS3. He currently holds ninth place.

Fifth place is being disputed by Citroen Junior duo Sebastien Ogier and Evgeny Novikov, who both made very strong starts to the event. Ogier took the place from his team-mate with a rapid time on SS3, while Adapta Subaru's Mads Ostberg is closing on both of them, despite being uneasy about the car's handling.

Stobart Ford's Henning Solberg fell from an initial fifth place to eighth as others got into their stride, the Norwegian admitting that it was taking him a while to settle into the rally and his set-up. His team-mate Matthew Wilson is nearly two minutes adrift of the leaders after hydraulic problems this morning.

Leading positions after SS3:

Pos  Driver              Car      Time
 1.  Jari-Matti Latvala  Ford     42m40.2s
 2.  Sebastien Loeb      Citroen  +  14.6s
 3.  Mikko Hirvonen      Ford     +  18.3s
 4.  Petter Solberg      Citroen  +  21.2s
 5.  Sebastien Ogier     Citroen  +  26.2s
 6.  Evgeny Novikov      Citroen  +  32.0s
 7.  Mads Ostberg        Subaru   +  33.1s
 8.  Henning Solberg     Ford     +  38.0s
 9.  Dani Sordo          Citroen  +1m02.4s
10.  Khalid Al Qassimi   Ford     +1m24.8s