Loeb in charge

After a nervy start the triple world champion lay 7.7 seconds behind Petter Solberg as they left the lunchtime service, but immediately set about reducing the gap, and began stage six only 2.1 seconds in arrears.

Unfortunately for both, the expected battle between the pair never elapsed as Solberg retired on the road section before the start of the stage when his Subaru's engine deposited its oil all over the road.

Loeb said: "It has been really good for the moment. I'm really happy with the start we've had. It is good news for the next few rallies and I hope we can continue like this tomorrow.

Chris Atkinson moved up to second after six stages, with Mikko Hirvonen just 0.2 seconds behind heading into the double run through the SuperSpecial at the end of the day.

And it was the Australian Subaru driver who made the most of those sprints, opening up a still slender 3.8 second advantage.

Fourth was Dani Sordo, who lost a place to Hirvonen on stage five.

Fifth, after a dismal day that saw him lose ground on every stage, is championship leader Marcus Gronholm in the second Ford, who was pessimistic of making up ground on Saturday because of what will be a lowly road position.

He said: "The last three stages were still not good. I made a little bit of a wrong tyre choice.

"I can't do too much now. I have to move up the order but I cannot win any more this rally. My road position is not good tomorrow, so I think I cannot improve."

Gronholm only found himself fifth after winning stage seven - something which allowed him to move back ahead of the Kronos Citroen of Manfred Stohl - who had passed him on the previous stage.

The Stobart Fords of Jari-Matti Latvala and Matthew Wilson completed the points-scoring positions while Gareth MacHale was ninth in his privateer Ford and Mark Higgins was the top Group N driver in tenth in a Mitsubishi.