Solberg leads in new Subaru

The Norweigan, who has not won a World Rally Championship round since late 2005, leads Sebastien Loeb by 7.7 seconds as the cars head for the first service, with his teammate Chris Atkinson running third.

"It's very, very good for the whole Subaru team that it's going so well," said Solberg, who believes that the car can go even quicker once some set-up adjustments are made.

Atkinson agreed that there was more to come.

"We need to tidy things up a bit, stop the car moving a bit, and then the times will be a lot better," he said. "We've got an idea of what we want to do, it's a set-up change."

Loeb believes that Solberg's pace has been aided by the Subaru's road position. With the cars running in championship order, the current points leaders encounter a dustier surface than those lower down the standings, such as Solberg.

"On the second loop we will all be in the same conditions, because the top four have to clean the roads a bit more and Solberg had a better road, so now we will see what we can do," said Loeb, whose Citroen C4 is making its gravel rally debut in Mexico.

"It's looking good at the moment, the first stages were okay, I just had a stone from a spectator on the windscreen, so that was a bad moment, the car is going perfectly."

The championship-leading Fords were particularly hampered by their position in the running order. Marcus Gronholm and Mikko Hirvonen currently run fifth and sixth, just 0.4 seconds apart, behind Citroen's Dani Sordo. In addition to the dusty surface, Hirvonen was also troubled by a puncture and a gearbox problem in SS3.

Manfred Stohl and Jari-Matti Latvala complete the top eight at present.

Henning Solberg was the first major contender to hit trouble - rolling his Stobart Ford in the opening stage. He lost nearly eight mintues, but was able to continue.

"I got a stone under the car, and then suddenly I just rolled," said Solberg. "The diff is not working well, and neither is the gearbox, but it's okay."

Leading positions after SS3:

Pos  Driver     Make         Time
 1.  P Solberg  Subaru    14:03.5
 2.  Loeb       Citroen     + 7.7
 3.  Atkinson   Subaru     + 14.9
 4.  Sordo      Citroen    + 21.5
 5.  Gronholm   Ford       + 26.9
 6.  Hirvonen   Ford       + 27.3
 7.  Stohl      Citroen    + 31.9
 8.  Latvala    Ford       + 51.2
 9.  Wilson     Ford     + 2:00.2
10.  G MacHale  Ford     + 3:15.4