French ace Sebastien Ogier sealed black Friday with a golden performance by winning the opening night time super special stage at Brelsford Park.
Ogier was in extraordinary form all day, unbeaten in the forest stages before claiming SS9 in his works Volkswagen Polo R.
But a slick run by Jari-Matti Latvala in the #7 VW Polo stopped Ogier from scooping the pool of special stages on the opening day.
Latvala covered the 1.6km super special of SS10 in 1:19.8s, pipping by Ogier by the slenderest of margins.
At the end of day one Ogier has established a neat 20s lead overall from Citroen's Mikko Hirvonen with Thierry Neuville (Ford Fiesta) slipping into third from Kris Meeke (Citroen).
Top 10 positions after SS10
1 | S. OGIER | 58:46.6 | 0.0 |
2 | M. HIRVONEN | 59:06.6 | +20.0 |
3 | T. NEUVILLE | 59:24.7 | +38.1 |
4 | K. MEEKE | 59:25.2 | +38.6 |
5 | J. LATVALA | 59:44.8 | +58.2 |
6 | M. OSTBERG | 59:48.3 | +1:01.7 |
7 | A. MIKKELSEN | 59:50.4 | +1:03.8 |
8 | E. NOVIKOV | 59:55.8 | +1:09.2 |
9 | N. QUINN | 1:02:49.2 | +4:02.6 |
10 | K. AL QASSIMI | 1:03:28.0 | +4:41.4 |