The sixth round of the Intercontinental Rally Challenge has begun near Vyborg as the Rally Russia contenders took on the opening stage, the first of four runs appearing on this evening's schedule. In all, 51 kilometres must be raced against the clock on Day One.

Skoda driver Juho Hanninen was the fastest driver to reach the end of the 15-kilometre Yashina stage, completing the distance in 8:42.1. Last year's winner delivered a very good performance in opening the rally, beating his nearest rival by a full 7.7 seconds.

The Finn was followed by the Abarth team's Giandomenico Basso while Jan Kopecky, aboard the second works Skoda Fabia S2000, claimed third place on this run. At the wheel of his Upsenskiy Rally Tecnica Russia Team Subaru Impreza, Swedish driver Patrick Flodin was fourth-quickest only a half-second away from Kopecky.

Guy Wilks brought the still-developing Proton Satria Neo S2000 into the fifth spot, his performance three tenths of a second faster than Anton Alen's Abarth team Grande Punto. Alen is back at the controls after missing out on the previous IRC event held in Belgium last month.

"I had a problem when we went through the water on that stage and it came in through the fresh air vent on the roof," Alen reported. "It soaked the inside of the windscreen and made things pretty heavy going for a while."

Far behind the young Finn, Franz Wittmann's Mitsubishi Lancer Evo IX took seventh place ahead of Aleksandr Zheludov's Peugeot, both drivers about 40 seconds further back from Alen.

"I'm not driving on the limit yet," Wittmann said. "We're just feeling our way into the event as it will never be won on the first night."

"But that said, I'm delighted to be so high up at this stage," he added.

Russian Champion Aleksander Zheludov lost 40 seconds due to engine problems affecting his Peugeot 207 S2000, but it was worse for Andrey Zhigunov, who lost seven minutes after damaging one of his Mitsubishi's tyres.

This being the opening run, the leaderboard reflects the first stage results: Juho Hanninen leads the rally ahead of Giandomenico Basso and Jan Kopecky, while Patrik Flodin and Guy Wilks complete the overall top five.

The Kutuzovo stage comes next.