At the end of the opening leg of Pioneer Carrozzeria Rally Japan, the BP Ford crews of Mikko Hirvonen and Jari-Matti Latvala hold the top two positions. Third is held by Sébastien Loeb (Citroën Total), and the Frenchman only needs to reach the finish in this position to claim a record-breaking fifth consecutive world title.

After four years in Obihiro, the rally has moved to Sapporo and is based in the Sapporo Dome, host to the 2002 World Cup. All the stages are therefore new to the crews. Today’s route was scheduled to include eight forest stages and two runs around the super special stage in the Dome.

 However, one stage – planned to be run twice (SS3/7) – had to be cancelled due to abnormal weather conditions, including snow, and another was cancelled as a result of an earlier accident (SS8). The route therefore only covered approximately 60 of the planned 90.48 competitive kilometres.

Hirvonen set the pace from the outset and was fastest on the opening two stages. He won the same two stages when they were repeated this afternoon and took victory in both runs at the super special stage. He overnights with a 26.2 second lead.

Team-mate Latvala held second position, but was overhauled by François Duval in SS5. However, in the following stage, Duval had an accident and the stage was stopped. He was uninjured, but co-driver Patrick Pivato was taken to hospital where he will undergo surgery for a fractured pelvis and tibia. 

As a consequence, Latvala moved back into second and Loeb into third position, the Frenchman climbing from sixth after the first stage. He had a slow start, but has upped the pace and is now just 4.4 seconds adrift of Latvala. Chris Atkinson and Petter Solberg (both Subaru) are closely matched in fourth and fifth respectively and looking forward to tomorrow’s stages, which are apparently more suited to the Impreza. Sixth and seventh are closely fought by Matthew Wilson (Stobart Ford) and Per-Gunnar Andersson, while Toni Gardemeister, in the sister Suzuki, is eighth. The other leading retirement of the day was Dani Sordo (Citroën Total), the Spaniard out with turbo failure.

Rally Japan - Results after Day 1

1 Mikko Hirvonen/Jarmo Lehtinen                      Ford Focus RS WRC            42 min 40.8sec
2 Jari-Matti Latvala/Miikka Antilla                      Ford Focus RS WRC            43 min 07.0sec
3 Sébastien Loeb/Daniel Elena                         C4 WRC                              43 min 11.4sec
4 Chris Atkinson/Stéphane Prévot                     Subaru Impreza WRC           43 min 41.1sec
5 Petter Solberg/Phil Mills                                Subaru Impreza WRC           43 min 42.8sec
6 Matthew Wilson/Scott Martin                         Ford Focus RS WRC            43 min 52.0sec
7 Per-G Andersson/Jonas Andersson               Suzuki SX4                           43 min  52.4sec
8 Toni Gardemeister/Tomi Tuominen                 Ford Focus RS WRC            44 min 17.6sec