Loeb holds clear lead in Mexico

A tense battle was developing between Loeb and Solberg before the latter's Subaru began losing oil approaching the start of El Cubilete 2.

Revelling in the new Impreza WRC2007 after a depressing and winless 2006 season, Solberg had built a 7.7 second lead before the lunchtime service, but came under renewed pressure from Loeb in the afternoon.

The reigning champion clipped 2.8 seconds from Solberg's advantage by winning SS4, then narrowed the gap to 2.5 seconds in Ortega 2.

But Solberg's retirement brought the contest to a premature end, leaving Loeb to go quickest through SS6, and end the Citroen C4 WRC's first day of competitive gravel rallying with a 27 second lead.

"It has been really good for the moment," said Loeb. "I'm really happy with the start we've had.

"It's important to also be very fast on gravel. At the moment I'm very happy with the performance, and hopefully we can continue with that tomorrow."

Although the battle for first place has fizzled out for the time being, there is extremely close competition for the rest of the top six positions.

Chris Atkinson had also shown the promise of the new Subaru and moved up to second when his teammate retired. But the flying Mikko Hirvonen - who had started the day in sixth after struggling with a dusty surface in SS1 - closed to within 0.4 seconds of the Australian before the two superspecial stages that would end day one. Nevertheless, Atkinson was buoyant about Subaru's progress.

"We didn't like where we were last year, but the guys did an awesome effort and now we're in a position to fight for podiums again, which is nice," Atkinson said.

"Petter was leading and it was really unlucky what happened to him, but he'll be back stronger than ever in the next few rallies, and the whole team will be. We're working on the set-up this weekend and every stage we're improving."

Behind fourth-placed Dani Sordo, Manfred Stohl had a superb afternoon in the OMV Kronos Citroen - setting the fastest time of all in Ortega 2 (albeit just 0.1 seconds ahead of Loeb) and holding fifth before the superspecials.

"The afternoon was good," said Stohl. "I got more used to the car, and I hope it continues tomorrow."

The Austrian's improved form left struggling championship leader Marcus Gronholm down in sixth. Running first on the road had left him grappling with dusty surfaces all day, and he felt that he had exacerbated the problem with an errant tyre choice in the afternoon, leaving the former champion very sceptical about his chances over the rest of the weekend.

"After the last regroup it was not so bad, but I was still losing a lot of time," said Gronholm.

"I can't do so much. I'm very low in the classification so I have to at least climb up somewhere, but I can't win this rally. My road position is shit for tomorrow, too.

"In the morning, I was sweeping. In the afternoon, I was sleeping..."

Jari-Matti Latvala is now a lonely seventh, two and a half minutes ahead of his teammate Matthew Wilson.

All three Stobart Fords are still in the rally, with Henning Solberg's battered Focus a very distant 16th following the Norweigan's SS1 roll.

Leading positions after SS8:

Pos  Driver    Make           Time
 1.  Loeb      Citroen  1h 21:48.3
 2.  Atkinson  Subaru       + 27.0
 3.  Hirvonen  Ford         + 27.4
 4.  Sordo     Citroen      + 31.7
 5.  Stohl     Citroen      + 41.2
 6.  Gronholm  Ford         + 43.4
 7.  Latvala   Ford       + 1:28.9
 8.  Wilson    Ford       + 4:07.5