Solberg takes commanding lead

The Norwegian holds a 46.6-second lead going into tomorrow's second leg, after Sebastien Loeb and Marcus Gronholm both retired, and Subaru teammate Chris Atkinson lost the lead with steering trouble.

Gronholm's retirement means that Solberg has been all but handed second place in the world drivers' championship. Gronholm hit suspension trouble on SS7 and local police refused to let him drive his car back to Langley Park service in Perth on safety grounds, and he had to retire from the leg.

Double world champion Loeb had taken the lead after recording the fastest time through SS8, the 23.03km test of Beraking 1, however on SS9 he went off at a fast left-hander and hit a tree.

Local favourite Chris Atkinson also challenged Solberg, leading the rally outright after SS4. However,  a steering arm broke on the Impreza on SS6 and he dropped two and a half minutes to Solberg, before the problem was repaired at service. Atkinson charged back through the field, and now stands in ninth.

All the drama has promoted the battle between Citroen's Francois Duval and Skoda's Colin McRae for a battle for second. Duval holds the position overnight by just 1.4 seconds, after taking the lead back from McRae during the two Perth Superspecials at the end of the leg.

McRae had overtaken Duval on SS7 to hold second, Skoda's highest position of the season.

Mitsubishi's Harri Rovanpera holds fourth overnight, the Finn recording the fastest time overall of both runnings of the Perth Superspecial, and is only 16.5 seconds behind McRae and looks set to challenge for a podium finish tomorrow.

Citroen privateer Manfred Stohl is in fifth, aiming for his fifth points-scoring finish of the season.

The Ford pair of Toni Gardemeister and Roman Kresta rounded out the points paying positions, however both would be battling for second with McRae and Duval if it wasn't for a 30-second penalty awarded to each.

With the Ford team using the new Focus WRC06 in Australia, they were awarded the penalty because they are not using the same engine as they had used from the twinned event of the Rally Japan.

Standings after leg one:

Pos Driver        Make               Time
 1. Solberg       Subaru        1:14:58.0
 2. Duval         Citroen      +     46.6
 3. McRae         Skoda        +     48.0
 4. Rovanpera     Mitsubishi   +   1:03.5
 5. Stohl         Citroen      +   1:13.4
 6. Galli         Mitsubishi   +   1:20.2
 7. Gardemeister  Ford         +   1:37.6
 8. Kresta        Ford         +   1:46.8
 9. Sola          Ford         +   2:00.9
10. Atkinson      Subaru       +   2:09.3
11. Schwarz       Skoda        +   2:29.4
12. Higgins       Subaru       +   6:16.2
13. Arai          Subaru       +   6:23.9
14. Pozzo         Subaru       +   6:41.8
15. Teiskonen     Subaru       +   7:15.4
16. Nutahara      Mitsubishi   +   7:21.9
17. Al-Attiyah    Subaru       +   7:33.3
18. Brand         Subaru       +  10:24.2
19. Challis       Mitsubishi   +  11:19.7
20. Villagra      Mitsubishi   +  12:17.9

All Timing Unofficial