At the end of the opening day of competition in Rally Sweden, the first round of the FIA World Rally Championship, Ford’s Mikko Hirvonen heads the leaderboard.

Behind the Finn, Citroën drivers Sébastien Loeb and Dani Sordo hold second and third respectively, the trio already pulling away from the field.

Other top names have however hit trouble. Petter Solberg had a disastrous opening super special stage last night, when he spun and lost 18.3 seconds on the 1.9 kilometre stage. He also went off today and lost another five minutes leaving him 13th overall.

Double World Champion Marcus Grönholm suffered an electrical failure and dropped over 12 minutes, while former Formula One World Champion Kimi Räikkönen lost 26 minutes when he got stuck off the road. 

Rally Sweden is a classic on this year’s 13-round calendar. It is a highly specialised rally where temperatures can plunge to -25ºC, placing huge demands on man and machinery as they power through the snow filled forests. It is also the only event on the calendar where narrow studded tyres are used; the studs biting through the snow and ice base to give phenomenal grip on seemingly otherwise impassable roads. Ironically, it is one of the fastest events of the year.

The event started last night with the opening super special stage, where Dani Sordo took honours. However, this morning the crews headed north into the forests for two loops of three stages, before returning to Karlstad for another run around the dual lane super special stage.

Sébastien Loeb set the early pace today, the French multiple World Champion claiming victory in the first two stages of the day to pull out a slim 1.8 second advantage over his team-mate. Hirvonen fought back in the following stage to move into second position and during the repeated stages in the afternoon, he and team-mate Jari-Matti Latvala shared the stage victories, giving Hirvonen the overnight lead, Loeb and Sordo second and third respectively. All three ran without problems during the day and are split by 10.6 seconds.

Latvala holds fourth, the Finn struggling to find a good rhythm. Sébastien Ogier is running well in fifth in his first real snow rally and Henning Solberg is sixth after struggling with gearbox problems.

Rally Sweden – Results after Day 1