Latvala steals a march

Finnish driver Latvala won just one of the morning's opening three stages but that was enough to open up a 4.4sec lead over Loeb at the head of the standings.The 22-year-old continued to impress in the afternoon loop, steadily increasing his lead over world champion Loeb with wins on stages five and six."Today has been a surprise for me to be honest," said Latvala. "We had a very good start in the morning and were able to keep the pace in the afternoon again."We were a little bit faster than Sebastien so it's been a good day."I certainly got a confidence boost from Sweden, but the whole package is working well now - the feeling, the set-up, the car, co-driver, pace-notes - it's all come together well."The Citroen C4 of Loeb claimed two wins on the opening three stages but the four-time reigning champion admitted he had nothing left to give in pursuit of the in-form Latvala."I cannot go faster," said Loeb, who failed to score in Sweden after rlling early in the rally."I really tried hard and pushed to the maximum this morning, and there is nothing more to do."I think I did good stages with no mistakes, a perfect line and very fast everywhere, but the time is not there."I think Jari is just driving very good stages, keeping on the line and making no mistakes."We will speak with the engineers this evening to see if we can do something on the car and then just try and do better tomorrow."Latvala's team-mate Mikko Hirvonen, who leads the championship after two rounds, finished the opening leg in fifth place - 70 seconds off the lead - after being delayed when he hit a rock and picked up a slow puncture on stage four.

The Subarus again underlined their early-season promise by finishing the day in third and fourth place, Chris Atkinson 40 seconds clear of Petter Solberg.Atkinson finished the first leg less than 13 seconds shy of Loeb and declared himself pleased with his efforts."If we had the handling a little bit better I think we could be much quicker, but it's still a good day," he said.Another driver with reason to be cheerful was Britain's Matthew Wilson , who ended the day in seventh place behind Munchi's Ford's Henning Solberg.