Citroen team leader,
Sebastien Loeb heads the pack at the end of leg 1 of the Rally Catalunya Costa Daurada, the twelfth round in the 2007
FIA World Rally Championship.
Loeb began the day with the second best time in SS1, 2.6 seconds off Marcus Gronholm, before taking the lead in SS2, when he was 2.3 seconds up on his team-mate,
Daniel Sordo and 7 seconds up Gronholm.
In the end he went into the first service halt at Port Aventura with a 3.7 second cushion in his Citroen C4 WRC.
The middle loop saw Loeb extend his advantage over his championship rival and two second best efforts allowed him to increase the margin more than five-fold, from 4.4 seconds post-SS2 to 25 seconds post-SS4.
By now though Dani was starting to really find his groove and the Spaniard put in a storming time on SS4 and was 8 seconds quicker than the Seb, a result that pushed him up to P1 overall - albeit just 0.7 seconds in front.
Sordo then increased his cushion further in SS5, before Loeb took command in the final test of the day, the rain-affected 26.48 kilometre-run through Pratdip. The Frenchman was just under 15 seconds faster than Sordo in SS6 and consequently will go into the second leg on Saturday with an 11.3 second lead.
Gronholm for his part ended the day nearly a minute off Seb and was understandably none-to-pleased.
Although he managed to win SS1 and was second fastest in SS5 and third quickest in SS2, he lost a big chunk in the middle loop when he opted for the wrong tyres and then gave away even more time in the final test.
Mikko Hirvonen meanwhile finished the day in fourth place in the sister
BP Ford Focus RS WRC car and while he had been more than 20 seconds behind Gronholm post-SS2 by the end of the day less than 3 seconds split the two Finns.
