Sainz and Gronholm do battle

Conditions in Sweden are atypical, with less snow than usual on the stages. There is still a covering of snow and ice on most of the stage surfaces, but gravel is poking through here and there - and too much will make things very tricky, destroying the tyres' studs and leaving drivers in big trouble on the icy patches.

The event kicked off with a 19.59km stage at Lidsbron, and Gronholm, the pre-event favourite despite the newness of his 307 WRC, ripped through the stage to set the fastest time, 5secs quicker than Sainz. "Not too bad, but very slippery," was Gronholm's verdict.

Sainz's team-mate, Monte Carlo winner Sebastien Loeb, was a further second in arrears in third. Markko Martin (Ford), world champion Petter Solberg (Subaru) and Ford's Janne Tuohino were next up. Solberg said: "There's every condition in there. It's very fast and very tricky."

Meanwhile, the new Mitsubishi Lancer WRC struggled for pace, as expected. Gilles Panizzi and Kristian Sohlberg were only 17th and 18th fastest respectively. Both were embarrassed by DTM star Mattias Ekstrom, who beat them both in his Production Car class-leading Mitsubishi.

Stage two, the 19.2km Torntorp test, belonged to Sainz, who just pipped Martin's time by a fraction of a second. Gronholm was only fourth fastest here, 1.7secs slower than Sainz, but maintained a 3.2sec lead over the Spaniard.

Martin's second fastest time meant he moved ahead of Loeb into third, while Mikko Hirvonen made up for a slow start on SS1 to move ahead of Subaru team-mate Solberg to take fifth overall.

Next up today is two runs through the daunting 52km Granberget stage, which is reported to be very icy.

For up-to-the-minute information, stay tuned to our live rally timings service, and look out for our regular reports from the stages and the service park.