Rally Catalunya got under way this morning on Spain's Costa Daurada with the first of 18 stages to be competed upon over the next three days.

Starting out today's first loop, the contenders made their way through a route presenting a wide variety of characteristics, moving from a fast-paced tricky start to a narrow section before a brake-heavy downhill run marked the end of this tarmac test named La Mussara.

Fastest of the shakedown, fastest of the first stage: the Citroen Team drivers were clearly at ease on this opening run, with Sebastien Loeb recording a best time of 11:17.3, a second and a half ahead of Dani Sordo aboard the other C4 WRC.

"It was quite a hard stage and the new tarmac sections were very slippery," Loeb reported.

The Frenchman's pace was seven seconds quicker than the Ford team duo of Francois Duval and Mikko Hirvonen, who crossed the line within 0:00.2 of each other in positions three and four.

Hirvonen was far from pleased with his performance: "My driving was absolutely terrible," he stated. "A very bad start," he added, although his confidence of doing better remained high.

13.6 seconds off the leader, Andreas Mikkelsen took fifth place at the wheel of his Ford Focus RS, followed by Urmo Aava's Citroen C4, slightly damaged on the rear left side. On the verge of the 20s-delay mark amd back driving for the Stobart Ford team on this rally, Jari-Matti Latvala claimed seventh position.

The Subaru Imprezas of Petter Solberg and Chris Atkinson were next in line, with P-G Andersson's works Suzuki SX4 WRC closing off the top ten.

Sebastien Loeb is the first leader of Rally Catalunya with a 1.5-second advantage on teammate Dani Sordo. Official Ford drivers Francois Duval and Mikko Hirvonen come next ahead of fifth-placed Andreas Mikkelsen.

The Rally Catalunya competitors now head for refueling before taking on the slightly slippery Querol 1 stage.