Sébastien Loeb heads the leaderboard at the end of the opening day of the Rally de España, the Citroën Total driver pulling out a 15.8 second advantage after the longest day of the event.

Team-mate Dani Sordo is second while the BP Ford drivers have been battling for third position. François Duval, drafted in by the team for this event and Corsica next week, claimed the position ahead of Mikko Hirvonen.

Round 12 of the FIA World Rally Championship is based on the Costa Daurada coast, in Salou, south-west of Barcelona. The roads in the Tarragona region are fast and flowing, but the asphalt surface can be smooth or abrasive and as crews cut corners, gravel pulled out on to the road can make conditions very slippery.

Today’s route was the longest of the three-day event, with crews covering two loops of three stages and 131.76 competitive kilometres. Loeb was on the pace instantly, and both he and Sordo have maintained a one-two formation through each of the stages, both running without problems.

Duval and Hirvonen have been dicing for third position and are split by 2.8 seconds going into tomorrow. Fifth position is held by Petter Solberg, the Norwegian having a better run after changing some of the settings on the Subaru. Urmo Aava, in a privately-run Citroën C4, is sixth but in a battle with Solberg, and is fending off Jari-Matti Latvala (Stobart Ford) and Chris Atkinson (Subaru), seventh and eighth respectively.

The only retirement of the day was Per-Gunnar Andersson (Suzuki), who went off the road. Despite the car being undamaged, he was simply unable to get back on the stage.

Rally de España - Results after Day 1 

1 Sébastien Loeb/Daniel Elena Citroën C4 WRC              1 hr 10 min 11.5sec
2 Dani Sordo/Marc Marti Citroën C4 WRC                       1 hr 10 min 27.3sec
3 François Duval/Patrick Pivato Ford Focus RS WRC       1 hr 10 min 52.8sec
4 Mikko Hirvonen/Jarmo Lehtinen Ford Focus RS WRC    1 hr 10 min 55.6sec
5 Petter Solberg/Phil Mills Subaru Impreza WRC             1 hr 11 min 59.0sec
6 Urmo Aava/ Kuldar Sikk Citroën C4 WRC                     1 hr 12 min 12.7sec
7 Jari-Matti Latvala/Miikka Antilla Ford Focus RS WRC     1 hr 12 min 15.9sec
8 Chris Atkinson/Stéphane Prévot Subaru Impreza WRC   1 hr 12 min 24.9sec