Solberg's flying start

Subaru's Petter Solberg continued his Tour de Corse form of a week ago by winning the opening stage of Rally Catalunya on Friday morning

Oct 24, 2003, 7:21 AM

The Norwegian headed a quartet of the WRC's young lions at the top of the time sheets on La Trona, a classic 13.17km stage with flowing corners, but a very slippery surface.

Just 0.1sec slower was the first of the super-fast Ford Focus RS WRC 03s, driven by another Corsica star - Francois Duval. The Belgian was in turn just a further 0.2sec quicker than his team-mate Markko Martin. The Estonian is still feeling pretty sore after his big Corsica crash, but that doesn't seem to have slowed him much.

Fourth spot went to Citroen's Sebastien Loeb, he was 1.8sec off Solberg's scorching pace, with Gilles Panizzi the best of the Peugeot's in fifth, a further second back. Richard Burns was seventh quickest in his Peugeot, sandwiched by the Citroens of Colin McRae and Carlos Sainz - the three former World Champions 3.1sec and 3.4sec respectively off the ultimate pace.

Stay tuned to autosport.com for updates throughout the day.