Marcus Gronholm has grabbed the lead on the inaugural Rally Ireland following the short Belfast super special, which kicked off the event on Thursday night.
Gronholm completed the 1.82 kilometre test run in the grounds of the Stormont Parliament buildings in 1 minute 30.8 seconds, beating
Sebastien Loeb, his chief championship rival and who he went head-to-head with, by 0.9 seconds.
"It was great to see so many people alongside the stage. I've heard a lot about the passion for rallying in Ireland and I really enjoyed the atmosphere here tonight,” said the
BP Ford man.
“It was a fun way to start the event, but the competition starts for real in the morning on the country stages. They are narrow and bumpy with plenty of crests and dips and will be a real challenge.”
Kris Meeke meanwhile ended up 'best of the rest' in his privately entered Subaru Impreza, much to the delight of the local crowd – estimated to be around 10,000 strong. The former Junior WRC front-runner was only a second off Gronholm and 0.1 seconds slower than Seb's
Citroen C4 WRC.
Next up was Subaru duo
Chris Atkinson and
Petter Solberg, split by just two tenths of a second in their Imprezas.
Petter's co-driver, Phil Mills was won over by the super special: “It's got the usual stuff - a very narrow road, big jumps and a crossover, but the location is amazing,” the Welshman told the official SWRT website. “I reckon it is the best setting for a Superspecial in the WRC. It's extremely impressive.”
BP Ford #2 driver,
Mikko Hirvonen and
Stobart Ford's
Jari-Matti Latvala tied for the sixth fastest time, followed by
Daniel Sordo, Manfred Stohl and Xavier Pons, who rounded out the top ten.
“The stage went fine for me tonight and I was quite satisfied with my performance," said Latvala. "It wasn't a perfect stage for me, I was braking too early and not very tidy in some corners; I could have driven it better.
"However, I am happy, it is very easy to make a mistake on these stages and I didn't want to do anything silly before tomorrow. I was very impressed with the stage and the number of spectators that were watching. We took it pretty casually during the shakedown and just tried a few small things. The real action will begin tomorrow."
