Rally Sweden, day 1: Finns fight it out as Peugeots take control

The Peugeots have performed faultlessly throughout the day and are seemingly unchallenged. "There's nothing I can do about them," admitted Ford's Colin McRae, who is best of the rest.

McRae set fastest time on the final stage of the day's five tests. He is, however, 40.6 seconds adrift of the leaders and will need to produce a stunning drive over the next two days if he's to end Peugeot's recent domination of this rally, and the Scandinavians' lifelong stranglehold on a rally that they simply refuse to let outsiders win.

Conditions were expected to be near perfect, with a fresh layer of snow on top of hard packed ice. However, a surprise snowfall before the first stage caught out several drivers who floundered on the wrong tyres and are now having to fight back from lowly places. Running first on the road was no advantage for series leader Tommi Makinen and it seemed he would have the same problem tomorrow when the running order is reversed.

But the Finn stuffed his Subaru into a snow bank, damaged the cooling system, and was forced to retire soon afterwards.

"We cut a corner a bit too much and hit one of the big fresh snow banks," said Makinen. "We didn't slow down at all and didn't think anything was wrong but snow must have got into the radiator and blocked the cooling system. The engine started to lose power so we stopped to look but there was nothing we could do about it. It was too late. We have been unlucky with our road position and the change of weather at the start, the snow was just so deep and we lost a lot of time."

The mid-afternoon action saw several drivers trying hard to throw away their chances. Thomas Radstrom and Sebastien Loeb both hurled their Citroens off the road, and it must have been especially galling for Radstrom who then set fastest time on the next stage to show what he might have been capable of.

Mitsubishi's Francois Delecour has also spent 15 minutes in a ditch and World Champion Richard Burns saw a comfortable third place become a long shot for even a points finish when he too opted for the scenery rather than the road.

Tomorrow holds six stages on which to do battle, the first three having been used already today so road position might not be so crucial in the morning.

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