Loeb dominant at end of day one

The reigning champion was handed the lead when Mikko Hirvonen broke his Ford's suspension in the first of this afternoon's stages, and was able to edge away as conditions improved following the rain and fog of the morning.

Second-placed Chris Atkinson matched Loeb's pace at first and was able to remain within 50 seconds of the leader. But two spins in the day's final full-length stage cost the Subaru driver 40 seconds.

Although Atkinson was able to rejoin and hold on to second place, he is now just eight seconds ahead of teammate Petter Solberg, who has struggled with damper problems throughout the second loop of stages.

As Solberg's pace slowed, he looked set to lose third to Citroen's Dani Sordo, but the Spaniard also hit trouble in SS8, losing half a minute with a steering issue.

That dropped Sordo to fifth, as Stobart Ford's Gigi Galli set an impressive third-fastest stage time - bringing him past Sordo and onto Solberg's tail. Second to fifth places are now covered by just 36 seconds.

Local favourite Federico Villagra continues to hold an excellent sixth place for Munchi's Ford, to the delight of the home crowd. His position is fully deserved, for most of the afternoon's retirements were running behind Villagra when they stopped.

Henning Solberg (Stobart Ford) and Toni Gardemeister (Suzuki) joined the casualty list when they broke their suspension on rocks in SS5 and SS8 respectively. Their departures mean that Solberg's teammate Matthew Wilson has moved up to seventh, and factory Ford driver Jari-Matti Latvala has already been elevated to a point-scoring eighth place despite losing nine minutes when he rolled early in the event.

Citroen WRC rookie Conrad Rautenbach and Production class leader Andreas Aigner complete the top ten at the end of the day one.

Hirvonen is expected to rejoin under superally rules tomorrow - along with Henning Solberg and the Suzukis - but will be classified 23 minutes behind Loeb.

Leading positions after SS9:

Pos  Driver      Car          Time
 1.  Loeb        Citroen      1h54:28.0
 2.  Atkinson    Subaru       +  1:30.6
 3.  P Solberg   Subaru       +  1:38.9
 4.  Galli       Ford         +  1:47.7
 5.  Sordo       Citroen      +  2:06.9
 6.  Villagra    Ford         +  4:48.3
 7.  Wilson      Ford         +  6:18.3
 8.  Latvala     Ford         +  9:27.5
 9.  Rautenbach  Citroen      + 10:31.8
10.  Aigner      Mitsubishi   + 12:21.0