Subaru driver Petter Solberg had once again been Loeb’s closest rival all day before a turbo problem slowed him down and further electrical problems with his car forced him out of the final stage, although the Norwegian hopes to rejoin under the restart rules tomorrow.

Solberg won the opening stage of the rally, 2.7seconds ahead of Loeb, but the Frenchman fought back to take the lead after beating Solberg on stage two and further extended his advantage after setting the pace on stage three.

Loeb went on to increase his lead as he was quickest across stages four, five and six.

Henning Solberg is third in his Ford ahead of Peugeot’s Markko Martin, who climbed back up the standings after losing time with a puncture on stage one.

Martin’s team-mate, former world champion Marcus Gronholm, was forced out of the rally after his Peugeot suffered with terminal engine failure on the first stage.

However, the Peugeot’s were not the only cars to suffer across the stages.

Gilles Panizzi had engine trouble with his Mitsubishi, Chris Atkinson was forced out of leg one by a clutch problem on his Subaru while Francois Duval slipped from third position early on when he picked up a time penalty after arriving late to stage three following throttle problems on his Citroen to finish sixth.

Ford driver Toni Gardemeister also dropped from the third-place position he regained after Duval’s misfortune when he had a puncture on stage four and Skoda’s Armin Schwarz failed to finish the first leg after damaging his car.

In the production cup Brice Tirabassi finished the day in the lead with a 11.7secs advantage over his nearest rival.

Britain’s Mark Higgins – who had been leading the production class after stage three – failed to finish the first day after his car caught fire on stage four, while fellow Brit Natalie Barratt ended up 12th in the category.

Darlington driver Guy Wilks finished the day 27th overall in his Super 1600 class Suzuki.

Wilks failed to finish the final three stages of the day although the event does not count towards his junior world championship title push.

Gronholm commented on his retirement: “There was nothing I could do. The engine gradually lost power and the water temperature rose steadily for about six or seven kilometres before it died altogether.

“Before I saw from our screen that we were fastest on the split times, without pushing especially hard.

“The car and tyres work well in conditions which are quite awful: the first part of the stage reminded me of the Safari in Kenya!

“I’m obviously very disappointed – I would have liked to have scored some precious points here.”

Meanwhile, Petter Solberg will begin tomorrow from 11th position in the standings.