Loeb leads in Spain

Loeb now leads Duval's team-mate Markko Martin by 11s overall. The Estonian won dominantly two weeks ago in Corsica and you can expect him to feature prominently again in Spain. But whereas in the Rallye de France, Martin's main opposition outside of his own team was a cautious, title-chasing, Loeb, this time the Frenchman has been unleashed and told to go for it.

Asphalt-specialist Gilles Panizzi is third in the Mitusubishi Lancer as the Japanese manufacturer continues to work toward a full championship campaign in 2005. Marcus Gronholm is fourth in the first of the factory Peugeot 307s, already some 15s adrift of the world champion.

Duval has dropped to fifth after the second stage ahead of home hero Carlos Sainz - performing in front of his adoring fans for the last time as a fully-fledged WRC driver having announced his retirement last week.

The second factory Mitsubishi is an impressive seventh in the hands of Daniel Sola, ahead of Petter Solberg's works Subaru Impreza. The Norweigen admitted after his Corsican drubbing, that there is still work to be done before the team has perfected its asphalt trim, and unsurprisingly he is 25s off the lead.

Once again former Formula 1 driver Stephane Sarrazin is impressing in his French-run Subaru and is less than two seconds behind Solberg in ninth, while Skoda's Armin Schwarz rounds out the top ten.