Of the rest, Matthew Wilson rounds out the provisional points' scorers at this early stage of proceedings, with Manfred Stohl ninth in his OMV Kronos-run Citroen Xsara WRC and Xavier Pons tenth.

Henning Solberg finished the morning loop just outside the top ten in his Stobart Ford, after having lost a good 45 seconds or so in SS1 with a puncture.

SS1 itself was later stopped after Simon Harraway, who started rallying back in March, went off the road in his Subaru Impreza near point 7. Two spectators suffered minor injuries in the incident and were consequently taken to Morriston Hospital, Swansea by County Ambulance. Medical services though responded well and according to the organisers of the Rally GB were at the scene of the incident within three minutes.

In the FIA Production Car World Rally Championship category, Mark Higgins leads in his Mitsubishi, having set the PWRC pace in every single stage. Guy Wilks is next up, 6 seconds adrift, followed by Juho Haninnen, Gwyndaf Evans and Patrik Flodin.

Gabriel Pozzo, who is the only man that can stop Toshi Arai from taking the PWRC crown, is eighth. He needs to win this weekend though to take the Production title.

The action now resumes at 14.10 hours local time, when all three of this morning's stages will be repeated to conclude the first leg.

More to follow later...