Motorsport: Solberg top on day one

The world's best rally drivers were back at the Domain in Auckland for the last stage of day one of Rally New Zealand. The cars raced down the narrow lanes for 1.5km from the start at the museum.

The order didn't change and Petter Solberg in his Citroen will lead the chasing pack of Jari-Matti Latvala, Sebastien Ogier and others away this morning for stage 10 in Franklin.

"I enjoyed being second on the road today and Loeb's lines were all over the place so they were hard to follow," said a happy Solberg. "Hopefully it will not be a massive difference being first on the road. I don't care; I will go flat out anyway. It was unbelievable today. They were some of the best stages in the world."

The last stage of the day was too short for Sebastien Loeb to make up much ground on the leaders and he'll start in seventh place - 1m 19s down on Solberg. Not a bad place to be, as the preceding drivers will have cleaned the road for him.

"We will have to watch Sebastien [Loeb] today. He will leave his brain in the service area and it will be a maximum attack from him and expect incredible times from him," said Solberg.

Latvala is the best of the Ford drivers just over a second behind Solberg with his teammate Mikko Hirvonen loitering back in fifth place.

"I'm happy to start second on the road. Petter was driving really, really fast on the last gravel stage and I couldn't match his speed," said Latvala.

The man starting third today is Frenchman Ogier who's never seen the New Zealand roads before but took to them with speed, verve and consistency.

All the drivers will be going flat out today to retain their positions or improve.