"But the mechanics have done a great job and you can see from my times that the feeling is better now and I can push the way I like to. With no test before the rally it's been good to see that we have got off to a flying Finnish start and be on the podium at the end of the first day."

Gigi Galli and Dani Sordo however, are not that far behind in fourth and fifth and only 12 seconds or so separates the trio.

Sordo had been third for much of the day until a spin in SS8 dropped him to fourth. He then lost more time in the final three stages and now is 9.2 seconds off P4.

"I didn't feel as confident as this morning," said the Citroen #2 driver. "The stages were extremely fast at times and you needed to feel 100 per cent at one with your car to drive flat in places.

"We're not in a bad situation, though. We are in a good position for tomorrow and we will try to make the most of that."

Gigi was also content with how the day went and he managed seven top four times: "I wasn't able to keep the pace towards the end of the day and Henning has managed to get ahead but its fine, he's my friend and I don't mind him sweeping the road for me tomorrow," he joked.

"It has been a good day, it took us a while to just get up to speed this morning but my confidence is better now, the car and the Pirelli tyres are working well so I can push some more tomorrow."

Further down the order Subaru duo Petter Solberg and Chris Atkinson are sixth and seventh, although both are more than 30 seconds off Sordo and over 1.5 minutes off the battle for the win.

Neither were very pleased with how the new Impreza WRC2008 performed: "It has not been a very good day and I am very disappointed," said 'Hollywood'. "We did some changes in service but unfortunately I went the wrong way with them. Essentially the car is not consistent and it hasn't worked as I hoped it would."

"We seem to have fixed the problem we had this morning which is good for the confidence but once you give a minute away in Finland you might as well give up," added Atkinson.

Suzuki's Per-Gunnar Andersson rounds out the points' scorers in eighth in the new 'B-spec' SX4 WRC, with Ford privateer Matti Rantanen and his team-mate, Toni Gardemeister ninth and tenth.

Gardemeister hurt his shoulder in SS7, when he went off the road, but luckily the Finn survived to get to the end of the leg: "When we went off in the second run through Palsankyla this afternoon, it was a very, very big moment for us. I would say we went off the road at about 180kp/h - incredible! I really thought we were going to roll," he recounted.