KEY POINTS:
Frenchman Sebastien Loeb and Finland's Mikko Hirvonen continued their duel for the world rally championship on the opening day of Rally New Zealand today.
Defending world champion Loeb and Hirvonen are sitting one and two in the WRC driver standings and they occupied the rally's top two positions after the first five special stages in the Waikato, with Hirvonen 27.8 seconds in front.
Third was Loeb's Citroen teammate, Spaniard Dani Sordo, at 30sec down.
But the big talking point was a 30sec penalty that Loeb copped midway through the split stage four around Waitomo, when he was just 0.07sec behind Hirvonen.
The Frenchman got the penalty for being late for the second half of the stage, which organisers had divided because of a landslip caused by storm damage.
Loeb, who went on to finish the stage at 27.4sec overall behind Hirvonen, said the reason he failed to be on time was a starter problem with his Citroen.
He and co-driver Daniel Elena opened the bonnet and tried to get the engine going but couldn't.
"I just hit the starter button and it didn't work," he said.
"We tried everything. In the end we rolled the car back, pushed it and finally got it going. It had nothing to do with tactics."
However, his explanation failed to quell speculation that the delay might have been designed to improve his chances of not overtaking Hirvonen.
The overall classifications after that stage determined the starting order for tomorrow, with the leader setting off at the head of the field.
The consensus is that tomorrow's stages around Port Waikato and Te Akau could be decisive and being first away will be a disadvantage.
The reason is that the amount of fresh gravel on the roads to repair damage from the winter's bad weather would make the surface more slippery early on, while later runners would have a cleaner racing line.
However, Hirvonen said Loeb's predicament seemed genuine.
"I don't know what was wrong, but Seb really did seem to have a problem," he said.
"So tomorrow it looks like I'll be first car on the road. Okay, it won't be easy but we've found a good rhythm today, so we'll see what we can do."
Loeb, who is seeking his fifth world title in a row, went off the road in the opening stage at Pirongia West and said he was lucky not to roll while trying to avoid loose stones.
Australian Chris Atkinson did roll, when the same set of roads were used again as stage three, ending his hopes of a debut win in a WRC round.
His new Subaru went into a ditch and landed heavily on its left-hand front corner.
Fourth on the WRC driver standings, Atkinson managed to right his vehicle and get going again, but he retired later when the engine cut out.
Wairarapa's Richard Mason was on target to becoming the leading New Zealand finisher for the third year in a row.
With wife Sara co-driving in their Subaru, Mason was sitting in 12th place, at 5min 09.4sec behind Hirvonen.
The next best local driver was Cantabrian Hayden Paddon, in 18th spot at 7min 19.4sec down.
- NZPA
