Sebastien Loeb has taken his Citroen DS3 WRC to the fastest time through the Monster Street Stage Leon, a 1.23-kilometre all-asphalt test adjacent to the permanent service park in the rally’s host city.
The eight-time world champion was 0.2s faster than Petter Solberg and 0.8s quicker than Jari-Matti Latvala and Mikko Hirvonen, who shared the third-fastest time.
“It was just a short stage on Tarmac but I had a good drive with no problem,” said Loeb, whose advantage over Mikko Hirvonen in the battle for outright victory on Rally Guanajuato Mexico is 5.3s with two superspecial stages remaining on day one.
Latvala, in a Ford Fiesta RS WRC, said: “I didn’t want to be spectacular, I tried to be quick. We had a disappointing morning so we need to fight back.”
Ken Block and Nasser Al-Attiyah both admitted to sacrificing rapid stage times in order to put on a show for the fans lining the compact course.