Of the rest, Mads Ostberg is just outside the top ten in eleventh, with Latvala 12th, Munchi's team leader, Luis-Perez Companc 13th, Andreas Mikkelsen 14th and Guy Wilks 15th.

Wilks continues to lead the FIA Production Car World Rally Championship category and has increased the margin over his Mitsubishi team-mate, Gwyndaf Evans from 3.2 seconds to 7.6 seconds.

Juho Hanninen completes the PWRC top three, with Mark Higgins fourth and Patrik Flodin fifth.

There were no major retirements this morning, although Gabriel Pozzo was unable to re-start, something that hands the 2007 PWRC title to Toshi Arai, who is not competing this weekend as GB is not one of his nominated events [see separate story].

Several runners did opt to SupeRally though, including in addition to Latvala, Henning Solberg and Sebastian Lindholm, who is giving the all-new SX4 WRC its debut on gravel.

Henning finished the loop in 31st position, while Lindholm is 46th – his best time coming in SS8, when he was 15th quickest.

The action now continues at 14.47 hours local time, with a second run through the 19.56 kilometre Crychan stage. All three of this morning's tests will be repeated this afternoon, before the leg comes to a conclusion with a run through the short 1.10 kilometre super special stage at Cardiff's Millennium stadium.

More to follow later...