Loeb takes early lead in Finland

The Citroen driver set a time of 1:21.4 as the sun set on the 2.05km Killeri 1 gravel spectator test, taking the early initiative before going into tomorrow's opening leg.

Should Loeb remain in the lead on Sunday evening, he will stand alone as the most successful rally driver of all time, having already equalled Carlos Sainz's wins record last weekend in Germany.

Loeb was 0.2 seconds ahead of an exuberant Petter Solberg, who got out of his Subaru to wave to the crowd while co-driver Phill Mills helped drive it back to time control.

Loeb, however, is not as confident he will be able to repeat the same level of pace through the rest of the weekend.

"The stage was good but is not same as all the stages in the forest tomorrow," Loeb said. "Still, it was a good run."

Mikko Hirvonen was the fastest of Ford's Finnish pair, just 0.5 seconds behind Loeb, with his teammate Marcus Gronholm sharing fourth place with Mitsubishi privateer Daniel Carlsson. The pair were exactly a second behind Loeb.

Gronholm, who has won five of the last six Rally Finland, was not concerned about being behind Loeb in the early running,

"I made two clear mistakes on my run and went wide each time, so I have no problem with my time," Gronholm said.

The rally proper begins tomorrow at 9:21 tomorrow morning local time, with the 24.98km Lankamaa stage.

Pos  Driver       Car                 Time
 1.  Loeb         Citroen Xsara       1:21.4
 2.  Solberg      Subaru Impreza      1:21.6
 3.  Hirvonen     Ford Focus RS       1:21.9
 4=  Gronholm     Ford Focus RS       1:22.4
 4=  Carlsson     Mitsubishi Lancer   1:22.4
 6=  Atkinson     Subaru Impreza      1:22.7
 6=  Katajamäki   Ford Focus RS       1:22.7
 6=  Sordo        Citroen Xsara       1:22.7
 9.  Solberg      Peugeot 307         1:22.8
10   Honninen     Mitsubishi Lancer   1:22.9