Finland's BP Ford Abu Dhabi World rally Team driver Mikko Hirvonen holds the lead of Rally New Zealand after a fascinating first day of competition.
Hirvonen took the lead on the second stage and capitalised on a more advantageous road position than his title rival Sebastien Loeb to build a 9.4 sec lead over the Frenchman by the midday point. But Loeb was quicker in the afternoon and narrowed the gap to less than one second before collecting a 30-second penalty when his car had trouble starting before the penultimate stage.
“I don’t know if something was wrong or whether Citroen were playing tactics, but okay, in the end there wasn’t much I could do about it,” said Hirvonen. “But I’ve had a good day and I’ve never had such a good rhythm on these roads before. Obviously being first on the road won’t be so easy tomorrow, but I’m sure it’s going to be okay. All I can do is try my best. People want to see the same sort of close battle as last year - well it looks like it’s going to happen.”

Whether Loeb deliberately took the penalty or not remains unclear, but it added an unexpected twist to a day which many thought would end with Hirvonen deliberately dropping back to ensure a better road position than his rival on Saturday.
After struggling for grip as the first car through Friday’s stages Loeb acknowledged he would be in a better position on day two, but maintained his SS6 incident was purely due to a faulty starter motor. “For one time the regulations went in the right way to help me,” said Loeb. “Okay it’s not so bad because we are second on the road and it’s not good to be first. But we are 29 seconds back and that’s a big gap. So we will see how we get on. It’s a long day tomorrow.”

Third placed Dani Sordo said he was delighted to have ended the day in the final podium spot. “It means a fantastic road position for tomorrow,” he said. “But Latvala is close behind so I will try to hold my position. It won’t be easy but I will take some risks.”

Jari-Matti Latvala holds fourth overnight - just one-tenth of a second behind Sordo - but with Saturday’s road positions determined after SS6, he will be third on the road. The Finn had tried to drop behind Sordo on the penultimate stage, but miscalculated his pace by a fraction and ended up four-tenths ahead.
“It would be better to be fourth on the road, but giving away time on a stage is not an easy thing to do,” he said. “You don’t want to lose too much, but you don’t want to go too early, you have to find the midpoint. Today we didn’t get it exactly right but we’ll know for the next time.”

Almost one minute behind Latvala in fifth is Francois Duval of the Stobart VK M-Sport team. “It’s my first time with this car on these tyres and so far it’s been really good,” said Duval. “Tomorrow I’ll try a softer set-up to try and find some more grip but it’s okay. Jari is quite far ahead now, but I’ll be watching out for Aava behind me.”

Estonian Aava lies sixth, 33sec adrift of Duval in his P-H Sport run Citroen C4 WRC. Behind him in seventh is Petter Solberg of the Subaru World Rally Team, while Suzuki’s P-G Andersson is eighth in the final points winning place.

Chris Atkinson rolls on SS4

Chris Atkinson ends a possible good result for the new Subaru Impreza by crashing out of fifth on SS4.
Atkinson's promising start to the Rally New Zealand has come to an abrupt end after he rolled into retirement on SS4. The Australian had been posting times just off the leading Fords and Citroens through the first loop of stages when he crashed off whilst braking for a downhill section.
Losing control of his Subaru Impreza, Atkinson slid into a ditch, rolled over and heavily damaged the left-side of the car. Despite landing on its wheels and carrying on, Atkinson was forced to park up and retire a short distance from the finish line when the engine cut-out.
It remains to be seen whether Atkinson will continue to race through the SupeRally system, although - provided Subaru can fix it in time - it is likely they will treat the remainder of the event as a precious test session.

Meanwhile, Matthew Wilson joined Ford counterpart Henning Solberg in struggling with mechanical problems, the Brit picking up a transmission problem and dropping out of contention.

REPCO Rally New Zealand - day one top 15 overall