Loeb dominates day one in Corsica

Ominously for the chasing pack, Citroen driver Loeb said he had no intention of backing off yet despite his comfortable lead.

"Again, a perfect day," said Loeb after SS6. "Absolutely no problems. Now we have a very good lead, but I feel so good in the car at the moment that I'd prefer to keep this rhythm and concentrate."

Hirvonen admitted that he had no answer to Loeb's pace.

"I did try, but he's too fast," said the Ford driver. "There's nothing much I could do. I'm happy with the car and my driving is quite okay, but it's just not enough against him."

Ford's second driver Francois Duval remains third, 1.8 seconds behind Hirvonen.

The battle for fourth is still extremely tight. A lack of grip in SS4 saw Petter Solberg (Subaru) fall behind both Stobart Ford's Jari-Matti Latvala and his Subaru teammate Chris Atkinson, but set-up changes prior to SS6 allowed him to vault back past both in the day's final stage.

"That was a bloody good stage!" said Solberg. "I did something before the stage that worked better, and that was not bad. Too much understeer, but it's getting better and better. Now I'm having fun."

Latvala remains between the Subarus, with a scant 3.9 seconds covering the trio at present.

Despite struggling with illness, Toni Gardemeister (Suzuki) has held on to seventh under pressure from a crowd of cars.

"At the moment we are in the points, but there's a long way to go, and it will be tough," said Gardemeister.

After their morning problems, Andreas Mikkelsen (Ramsport Ford) and Urmo Aava (PH Citroen) have set consistently impressive times and charged back from 45th and 17th to eighth and 10th respectively, sandwiching the frustrated Brice Tirabassi, who has struggled with his Subaru's set-up.

Mikkelsen and Aava's improvements have pushed Conrad Rautenbach and Per-Gunnar Andersson outside the top ten, but this pack remains very closely-matched, with just 10 seconds separating Andersson in 12th from his seventh-placed Suzuki teammate Gardemeister.

Henning Solberg has dropped away from this group after his Munchi's Ford sustained a puncture in SS6 and then fell from the jack as the crew attempted to change it, costing him four minutes.

Leading positions after day one:

Pos  Driver              Car      Time
 1.  Sebastien Loeb      Citroen  1h09:24.3
 2.  Mikko Hirvonen      Ford      +   32.3
 3.  Francois Duval      Ford      +   34.1
 4.  Petter Solberg      Subaru    + 1:11.5
 5.  Jari-Matti Latvala  Ford      + 1:12.7
 6.  Chris Atkinson      Subaru    + 1:15.4
 7.  Toni Gardemeister   Suzuki    + 3:16.1
 8.  Andreas Mikkelsen   Ford      + 3:18.5
 9.  Brice Tirabassi     Subaru    + 3:21.4
10.  Urmo Aava           Citroen   + 3:23.1