The opening day of Rally Norway, the second round of the FIA World Rally Championship, has been closely fought at the top of the leaderboard.

After dominating most of the day, BP Ford driver Mikko Hirvonen overnights in second position, just 2.6 seconds adrift of Sébastien Loeb (Citroën Total), while Jari-Matti Latvala holds third.

Rally Norway is the only winter event on the calendar and this year conditions are perfect, with deep snow banks, ice-packed roads and temperatures that have plunged to almost -30ºC. Local hero Petter Solberg, now running his own private team, set the pace around last night’s super special stage in Oslo.

This morning the fight for the lead was between Loeb and Hirvonen, the rivals trading fastest times on the first two stages before Hirvonen maintained the advantage. On the final stage, however, the Finn dropped back behind Loeb in an effort to take a better road position for tomorrow’s stages. The pair are split by 2.6 seconds, neither having experienced problems through the day.

Behind them, Jari-Matti Latvala has also been mixing in the fight and the Finn is 23.6 seconds behind Loeb. Dani Sordo (Citroën Total) has had a trouble-free run but is over 40 seconds adrift of Latvala. Petter Solberg has had a solid day in his first competitive outing in the Citroën Xsara WRC but he is in a close battle with Per-Gunnar Andersson.

Aside from Loeb and Hirvonen, Andersson is the only other driver to have set fastest times, the Swede claiming victory in two stages to overnight in sixth position in the Škoda. Henning Solberg, who fared better this afternoon after set-up changes at the mid-day service, holds seventh and Matthew Wilson (Stobart Ford) rounds off the top eight.

Rally Norway - Results after Day 1

1 Sébastien Loeb/Daniel Elena Citroën C4 WRC 1 hr 13 min 41.7sec
2 Mikko Hirvonen/Jarmo Lehtinen Ford Focus RS WRC 1 hr 13 min 44.3sec
3 Jari-Matti Latvala/Miikka Anttila Ford Focus RS WRC 1 hr 14 min 07.9sec
4 Dani Sordo/Marc Marti Citroën C4 WRC 1 hr 14 min 50.3sec
5 Petter Solberg/Phil Mills Citroën Xsara WRC 1 hr 15 min 13.2sec
6 P-G Andersson/J Andersson Škoda Fabia WRC 1 hr 15 min 13.3sec
7 Henning Solberg/Cato Menkerud Ford Focus RS WRC 1 hr 15 min 21.1sec
8 Matthew Wilson/Scott Martin Ford Focus RS WRC 1 hr 15 min 45.0sec