Like Mikko he felt the conditions were extremely tough: “I don't know who I'm battling with – the other drivers or the weather,” he stated. “It's all about staying on the road at the moment and that's hard enough in itself.

“In this event anything can happen – the key is to make sure it doesn't happen to me! I'm not driving at maximum yet – there is more to come from me – I've not had a great feeling, perhaps after crashing in last two rallies. The road conditions are exceptional.”

Sebastien Loeb meanwhile who is driving to finish in the top-five to ensure he takes his fourth drivers' title in succession, is well on course to achieve that, over 35 seconds up on Petter Solberg, who is in P4.

Loeb's only real issue occurred in the final test when he had a 'major problem' with his lights: “In some parts of the stage my fog lights didn't work, usually in the bits with fog,” he recounted.

“Furthermore even though I don't have to win this rally to win the title, I still need to drive fast to maintain the level of concentration I need to stay in touch with Marcus. This is only the first day – there is a lot of slipping and sliding ahead.”

Further down the order, 'Hollywood' also had problems in the final loop and a broken damper slowed him somewhat. Despite that though, the Subaru #1 still gained a place, after Jari-Matti Latvala had windscreen wiper problems in SS6.

The Finn had to stop several times to try sort the issue, but finally got caught out by the poor visibility and went into some logs. He will re-start on Saturday under the SupeRally – albeit now down in 15th place overall.

Daniel Sordo ended the day 5th in his Citroen C4 WRC, a minute or so off Petter, while Matthew Wilson is sixth in the 'third' Stobart Ford entry. The Englishman set top ten times in every single test, bar one, and is currently set to take his third points' finish in succession.

Of the rest, Chris Atkinson and OMV Kronos Citroen's Manfred Stohl round out the provisional points' scorers, the former just 1 second off Wilson in P6.

Xavier Pons and Ford privateer, Andreas Mikkelsen complete the top ten, followed by Jan Kopecky, Mads Ostberg and Guy Wilks.

Wilks, who is entered as a wild-card in the FIA Production Car World Rally Championship category, seized the lead from Mark Higgins on the repeat loop this afternoon.

Higgins dropped back in SS4 and SS5 and then lost out to both Gwyndaf Evans and Juho Hanninen in SS6 dropping to P4.