MOTOR SPORT WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP RALLY IRELAND:ON A DAY when the weather in the northwest was so bad that organisers pulled the plug on two planned night stages, Citröen's Sébastien Löeb showed just why he is a five-time world champion by blasting into a comfortable lead on the opening stages of a rain-lashed Rally Ireland yesterday, despite making a wrong tyre choice ahead of the morning stages in Leitrim and Cavan.

Despite dire conditions at the start of the first stage, Löeb opted for the standard wet tyres brought for the event, a choice that hampered the defending champion through the opening three stages and which allowed Stobart Ford driver Urmo Aava, who along with several others had chosen the extreme wet tyres normally reserved for the snow-covered roads of the Monte Carlo rally’s mountain stages, to pull out a surprise lead.

“The conditions were impossible,” Löeb lamented after the morning stages. “In stage one I didn’t want to push – it was too tricky with the wrong tyre choice. The only thing I could’ve done there is go off the road, so I didn’t want to do that.”

That, though, was the fate that befell BP Ford’s Jari-Matti Latvala on stage two. The young Finn had dominated stage one, having also opted for Pirelli’s extreme wet tyres, but on his second run, in Cavan, Latvala clipped a rock and spun, suffering not just a double puncture that left him stranded for more a minute and a half, but also suspension damage that forced him to retire from the leg.

That left the way open for a delighted Aava to extend his lead. “It’s really fantastic, a dream come true,” said the Finn of his first time leading a WRC round.

“I have a very good tyre choice, and I think Löeb and Mikko (Hirvonen) made a mistake with tyres.”

But the Ford driver was still looking over his shoulder for the inevitable. “We have an advantage, it’s true, but we have to drive the car,” said Aava. “But I don’t know how Löeb is going so well with his tyres – he must be crazy.”

Crazy or not, Löeb was putting in astonishing times in torrential downpours. Seventh after the first stage and 42 seconds down on then leader Latvala, Löeb hammered through the second stage in just 8 minutes, 31.5 seconds, 2.4 seconds quicker than Aava to climb to second overall, a move that left third-placed Mikko Hirvonen of BP Ford dumbfounded.

“He’s found incredible speed now,” Hirvonen admitted. “I don’t have any feeling now. We’ll go to service and see what we can do. At least we’re here now and we’ll try to play it better from now on.”

By the time they reached the midday service in Sligo, Löeb was just six seconds adrift of leader Aava, closing in and now able to take on extreme wets.

Throughout the repeat loop of the afternoon Löeb dominated, finally steering his Citroen into Sligo service park with a 44-second advantage over Citroen team-mate Dani Sordo.

“I wanted to take a rhythm and get the feeling, and now it’s good,” Löeb said. “We’ve been pushing since that first stage, and now with the “snow” tyre it’s going very well.” With all the major competitors now on the correct tyre, Aava lost time to the leaders and was down to fourth before he went off the road in SS6. Stuck in a ditch, he too was out of leg one. With Aava slipping back the way was open for Sordo to push through in stage five, the Spaniard demoting Hirvonen to third and 20 seconds back.

“It’s really good to drive now with this snow tyre, I’m feeling the grip really, really well,” said Sordo. “At the moment it’s not bad with Mikko, and I’m confident with the car, the tyres and the notes. Everything is perfect.”

It wasn’t so for Ireland’s Niall McShea. The winner of the Production Cup in the 2007 edition of this rally delivered a shock in the first stage, recording the third fastest time behind Latvala and Aava. The Enniskillen local managed to hang on to fifth through stage two but prior to the start of the next stage was forced to retire, electrical problems sidelining his S2000 Proton Satria.

That left Gareth MacHale as the fastest of the Irish drivers after the sixth stage, in ninth position, behind the Stobart Ford WRC car of Matthew Wilson. MacHale was backed up by Eamonn Boland, the Subaru Impreza driver finishing the afternoon stages just under 50 minutes further back.

That was the cue for a return to the service park to gather thoughts before the night stages of Murley and Fardross. But late in the afternoon, with rain still falling, rally organisers cancelled the stages, standing water making the routes too dangerous.

“We are especially disappointed for all the fans who were looking forward to seeing the starts of the World Rally Championship on their doorstep,” said Gordon Noble, clerk of the course. “All we can do is look forward to better conditions tomorrow.” So with six stages down, Löeb carries a 44-second lead into day two. “It’s a shame,” he said of the cancellation of the evening runs, “the atmosphere of driving at night can be very special. But the organisers know how much water is on the road so for safety this is the right decision. I only hope they have told the spectators standing at the side of the road early because it’s not nice standing in the rain.”

Which, after day one, is exactly where Löeb has left his rivals.

POSITIONS AFTER SIX STAGES

1 Sebastien Loeb/Daniel Elena (Citroen C4 WRC) 1h 09m 35.2s

2 Dani Sordo/Marc Marti (Citroen C4 WRC) 1h 10m 19.6s

3 Mikko Hirvonen/Jarmo Lehtinen (Ford Focus WRC) 1h 10m 40s

4 Henning Solberg/Cato Menkerud (Ford Focus WRC) 1h 12m 44.6s

5 Conrad Rautenbach/Daniel Barritt (Citroen C4 WRC) 1h 13m 53.5s

6 Sebastien Ogier/Julien Ingrassia (Citroen C4 WRC) 1h 13m 58.4s

7 Chris Atkinson/Stephane Prevot (Citroen C4 WRC) 1h 14m 26.4s

8 Matthew Wilson/Scott Martin (Ford Focus WRC) 1h 14m 31.2s

9 Gareth MacHale/Brian Murphy (Ford Focus WRC) 1h 14m 40.3s

10 Eamonn Boland/Damien Morrissey (Subaru Impreza WRC) 1h 15m 29.7s

11 Khalid al Qassimi/Michael Orr (Ford Focus WRC) 1h 16m 36.5s

12 Aaron MacHale/Killian Duffy (Ford Focus WRC) 1h 17m 00.8s

Group N Production class

1 Alan Ring/Adrian Deasy (Mitsubishi Lancer Evo 9) 1h 17m 55.8s

2 Shaun Gallagher/Paul Kiely (Mitsubishi Lancer Evo 9) 1h 18m 26.7s

3 Gary Jennings/Rory Kennedy (Mitsubishi Lancer Evo 9) 1h 19m 09s

Junior WRC class

1 Hans Weijs/Bjorn de Gandt (Citroen C2 1600) 1h 21m 41.5s

2 Aaron Burkart/Michael Kolbach (Suzuki Swift S1600) 1h 21m 43.4s

3 Martin Prokop/Jan Tomanek (Citroen C2 1600) 1h 22m 06.1s

TODAY’S STAGES

Service Park, Sligo 06.25

SS9 Sloughan Glen 1 08.13

SS10 Ballinamallard 1 09.06

SS11 Tempo 1 09.49

Service Park, Sligo 11.54

SS12 Sloughan Glen 2 13.57

SS13 Ballinamallard 2 14.50

SS14 Tempo 2 15.33

Service Park, Sligo 17.21