Frenchmen heads Citroen 1-2 after SS3.

Citroen's Sebastien Loeb has taken the lead on the Rally d'Italia Sardegna, the sixth round in the 2008 World Rally Championship, following the first three stages on Friday morning.

Loeb was only fourth fastest in the opening test - the 16.43 kilometre-run through Monte Corvos, 7.8 seconds off the pace, however he bounced back in SS2 and was 18.2 seconds up on his closest challenger.

The Frenchman then proceeded to set another quickest time in SS3 and returned to the mid-day service at Olbia with a 22.5 second lead.

"Despite the recent rain, the conditions were pretty much what we are accustomed to here in Sardinia," said the four-time world champion in service A. "It was very slippery and the stages are as narrow as ever, with just the odd damp portion here and there, and the occasional patch of standing water on SS3. It's been a positive start, but the weekend has only just begun.

"The second pass through the same stages this afternoon promises to be difficult because of the ruts that have formed and rocks on the road. If we are still leading after the second loop, we will have done a good job."

Dani Sordo meanwhile is second in the sister C4 WRC and the Spaniard managed to set two second quickest times and one fourth, finishing the loop around 15 seconds up on Mikko Hirvonen and Chris Atkinson who are currently equal third.

"I am pleased with my morning. I had a bit of understeer through the first two stages but I managed to cure that to an extent after modifying my set-up before the start of SS3," said Dani. "The conditions weren't easy, with a cocktail of mud, dry portions and some churned up sections that were quite slippery. It's been a positive start, however, and we have succeeded in emerging in second place, behind Seb and ahead of our rivals. We now need to keep up the same pace."

"It was slippery and I couldn't push any harder," Mikko added. "At times I was driving from ditch to ditch and in places I eased off because I didn't want to go off the road. I'm not sure if I was losing time because I was cleaning the loose gravel, or because I was breaking the damp surface and the cars behind had better grip. This afternoon the roads will be rutted so I hope to find more grip and speed."

Subaru's Petter Solberg completes the top five, just 5.5 seconds off the battle for third, while Urmo Aava is sixth in his privately entered PH Sport-run C4 WRC - 27.2 seconds further back.

"The stages were quite rutted for me this morning, but I didn't have any real problems in them," noted 'Hollywood'. "They're quite soft though and there's still a bit of water in places so they'll be worse this afternoon.

"I think they'll be quite badly rutted. There are a lot of rocks in places as well so it's not easy. We've seen some punctures this morning for other crews, so just like before here it's so easy to go off."

Further down the order, Gigi Galli lies seventh and the Stobart Ford man would have been higher up, but he lost quite a bit of time in the monster 33.96 km Crastazza 1 test, when he hit a bank.

"We had a good start this morning and the feeling on the opening stage was good despite the conditions which were very slippery," said the local star. "We slid wide on a right hand corner about a third of the way into the second stage though, hit some rocks, and were very lucky to just come away with a puncture.

"We decided not to change it and the Pirelli tyres held up remarkably well after driving on the damaged tyre for 20 kilometres. But the car feels good and on the next stage we set a third fastest time."

Of the rest Toni Gardemeister completes the top eight in his Suzuki, followed by Henning Solberg, who is competing for the Munchi's squad on this event, and Per-Gunnar Andersson.

Jari-Matti Latvala finished the morning in eleventh and while he had initially grabbed the lead after storming through SS1, a mistake in SS2, dropped him down the pack and cost him more than 90 seconds.

"It was my mistake," Latvala admitted. "Maybe my pace notes were too quick, but at a downhill right bend about 18km after the start I hit a soft bank and the tyre came away from the rim and went down straight away.

"Because it was a rear tyre I decided not to stop and change it because I would lose too much time and that proved the right decision. Now my target is to regain more places this afternoon."

Federico Villagra trails Latvala in twelfth, followed by Conrad Rautenbach, Khalid Al-Qassimi, Matthew Wilson, Mads Ostberg and current Junior WRC leader, Martin Prokop.

Prokop took the JWRC lead in SS2 and now has a 3.5 second lead over Michal Kosciuszko, with Patrik Sandell third and Sebastien Ogier fourth. Jaan Molder completes the Junior top five.

In terms of retirements only one major name has gone out - namely Andreas Mikkelsen, who rolled his Ramsport-run Focus RS WRC car in SS2.

The action now continues at 15.18 hours local time, when all three of this morning's stages will be repeated to conclude the first day's action.

More to follow then...