At the end of the opening day of competition in Rally Australia, Jari-Matti Latvala heads the field and holds a slim 2.2 second lead. Reigning Junior World Rally Champion Sébastien Ogier is second with Sébastien Loeb third.

Rally Australia returns to the FIA World Rally Championship calendar for the first time since 2006. After 19 years in Western Australia the event has moved to the east coast and a new base in Kingscliff, south of Brisbane, in New South Wales.

The event started last night with two runs around the super special stage in Murwillumbah, where Ogier took victory in both stages to lead the event as it headed into today’s first full day of competition. The route was scheduled to take in another 13 stages and just over 100 competitive kilometres, however stages 6/11 were cancelled for safety reasons.

This morning, Ogier briefly held on to his lead but it was Latvala who then powered ahead and the Finn never lost his advantage throughout the day, winning six stages in the process. He is nevertheless in a tight battle and Ogier remains only 2.2 seconds adrift with Loeb another 20.5 seconds behind. The Frenchman experienced a throttle problem this morning and has not felt comfortable with the car all day.

He went into the final two super special stages in fifth position but climbed to third. Dani Sordo holds fourth, the Spaniard running as high as third and without problems during the day. He overnights one-tenth of a second behind his team-mate. Finn Mikko Hirvonen experienced less favourable conditions running first on the road and has done well to minimise the time loss. He was third going into the super special stages, but dropped time around the 2.55 kilometre asphalt stages. He is 23.6 seconds off the lead but crucially only nine-tenths of a second adrift of Championship rival, Loeb. Henning Solberg rounds off the top six.

Like most of the other drivers, Matthew Wilson complained of limited grip on the slippery stages and the Briton also had a spin and a steering problem. Federico Villagra holds the final provisional point scoring position. Khalid Al Qassimi was the only leading retirement of the day, the UAE driver sidelined with broken steering.

Rally Australia - Results after Day 1

1. Jari-Matti Latvala/Miikka Anttila                 RS WRC                       53 min 21.4sec
2. Sébastien Ogier/Julien Ingrassia                Citroën C4 WRC            53 min 23.6sec
3. Sébastien Loeb/Daniel Elena                     Citroën C4 WRC           53 min 44.1sec
4. Dani Sordo/Marc Marti                              Citroën C4 WRC            53 min 44.2sec
5. Mikko Hirvonen/Jarmo Lehtinen                  Ford Focus RS WRC     53 min 45.0sec
6. Henning Solberg/Cato Menkerud                Ford Focus RS WRC     54 min 12.7sec
7. Matthew Wilson/Scott Martin                     Ford Focus RS WRC     55 min 03.8sec
8. Federico Villagra/Jorge P Companc            Ford Focus RS WRC     55 min 26.0sec