Motorsport: Tyre choice helps Loeb dominate field

Sebastien Loeb is more a taciturn than a voluble Frenchman, but he was bubbling with enthusiasm after grabbing a 23.1s lead after the first day of Rally New Zealand yesterday.

The reigning world champion was under a second ahead of former champion Marcus Gronholm and championship leader Petter Solberg after four of the eight special stages.

But an inspired choice of Michelin tyres for the four afternoon stages distanced his Citroen from the field.

Gronholm is his nearest challenger in a Peugeot, followed by Citroen team-mate Francois Duval 26.7s off the pace and Solberg's Subaru 31.7s behind.

The leading Kiwi is Chris West in a Group N Subaru, who is in 19th place overall and sixth in Group N, 5m 23.8s behind Loeb.

"I think we made a very good tyre choice - a new very hard compound from Michelin," Loeb said.

"When I realised how good the car was I tried to push very hard to get a good lead.

"The car is much better than last year or two years ago, but it's very easy to make a tyre mistake or have a spin, and Petter and Marcus are two guys who never give up."

Gronholm, three times a winner in the event, was not optimistic about making up ground on Loeb today, when the Frenchman should have an ideal starting position with the world championship drivers running in reverse order on the road.

"We took the wrong tyres and I think all the Pirelli drivers struggled," the tall Finn said. "I think the lead may be too much to make up."

Solberg was ecstatic at the halfway break for service when he was only 0.8s behind Loeb, despite having to run first on the gravel roads, sweeping them clean for those who followed.

"I'm over the moon the way it's going," the Norwegian said. "The first stage was 50-50 wet and dry, but the next three were full gravel and I was pleased with my tyre choice."

At the end of the day, it was a very much more subdued Solberg, though he never loses his infectious grin.

"We should have taken the hardest tyre," he said. "That was my mistake, but we were also cleaning the road because, even though we were doing the stages for the second time, the lines were not my lines."

One of the performances of the day came from young Aussie Chris Atkinson, who is in fifth place, less than a minute off the lead and only 22.6s behind his Subaru team-mate, Solberg.

Atkinson is in his debut year with the Subaru works team and he thrilled his supporters by setting the fastest time on two of the stages, after losing ground with a spin in the second stage.

He is ahead of such experienced campaigners as Toni Gardemeister (Ford), Markko Martin (Peugeot) and the Mitsubishi and Skoda drivers.

West, who is beginning the defence of his national title, had a horror preparation for the event when his car was badly damaged last week in a road accident and he developed food poisoning two days ago.

But despite dehydration on the hot and generally sunny day, he drove steadily to counter the effects of deteriorating tyres.

Second Kiwi is Mark Tapper in a Mitsubishi in 22nd place and third is veteran Neil Allport, who is 27th in a similar car.

Notable casualties include Sam Murray and Dean Sumner, who crashed, and Nick Marshall and Glenn Smith, who had mechanical problems.

* The rally resumes at 9am today with six stages in the Paparoa area before returning to Auckland for two passes of the Manukau Superspecial from 7.30pm.