Leg 1 am: Burns chases Panizzi

The Englishman lies 11 seconds behind the French asphalt specialist after three of today's six stages. Over the last Special Stage, the long 48.05kms Escaladei run, Burns was just three seconds down on Panizzi and looks bent on pushing the Tour de Corse winner all the way.

As expected, the French manufacturers are setting the pace in Spain. Behind the two leading Peugeots are the Citroens of Philippe Bugalski and Sebastien Loeb. But the two Xsaras are already over 30 seconds down on the leader.

The rally got off to a bad start when the opening stage had to be cancelled. It was judged that there were too many enthusiastic Spanish rally fans congregated at the end of SS1, but fortunately threats that the morning's other two stages would be canned aswell came to nothing.

That meant SS2 became the opening stage of the rally and Panizzi set the pace from the start. Former champion Marcus Gronholm was third quickest behind Burns, but the Finn hit trouble on SS2. He was 25 sec off the pace on the long run and has dropped to sixth overall. Ahead of him is the only non-French car, Subaru's impressive young charger Petter Solberg.

Injured Ford stars Carlos Sainz and Colin McRae have made good starts under the circumstances. With an unfamiliar co-driver following Luis Moya's injuries from Monday's testing crash, Sainz has still managed to hang on to the leaders in seventh overall. McRae is just 1.9 sec behind the Spaniard in eighth.

For full times from SS3, click here.

For full rally live timings, click here.

For rally itinerary, click here.

For full entry list, click here.