Ford's Rally d'Italia Sardegna - after stage 3

Ford's Jari-Matti Latvala and co-driver Miikka Anttila made a perfect start to Rally d'Italia Sardegna this morning by winning two speed tests and powering into an early lead in their Focus RS World Rally Car.  BP Ford Abu Dhabi World Rally Team colleagues Mikko Hirvonen and Jarmo Lehtinen also began this sixth round of the FIA World Rally Championship well and the Finns lie third in their Focus RS WRC.After last night's start ceremony in the rally base of Olbia, on the north-east coastline of this Mediterranean holiday island, the competition began this morning.  Drivers tackled the first of two identical loops of three gravel special stages south of the town covering 130.20km in total.Start position is always crucial in Sardinia where a slippery sandy surface hampers the early starters.  Latvala, seventh in the running order, made the most of cleaner and faster roads to win the opening 14.99km Sa Conchedda test.  He was second in the 22.30km Loelle and ended the morning with a second win in the 27.81km Crastazza.  Latvala returned to the Olbia service park with a 14.6sec lead."I'm enjoying fighting for the lead and I really want to be in this position on Sunday, but that's two days away," said 24-year-old Latvala.  "Although I'm leading, I don’t feel I've found a good rhythm yet and I'm braking too much.  Under braking the engine revs are falling and the car feels as if it's going to stall.  I will change the engine mapping programme in service.  Nobody wants to start first tomorrow on sandy roads and my start position means I can respond to tactics from those ahead this afternoon."Team-mate Hirvonen spent much of yesterday in bed with a fever.  The 28-year-old felt better this morning and was second on the opening stage behind Latvala.  He was seventh through Loelle and fourth in Crastazza to return to service in third, 18.3sec behind his fellow Finn."The roads were slippery and I wasn't 100 per cent confident," said Hirvonen.  "They are twisty, fast and narrow anyway, so to have less than perfect confidence makes things difficult.  I'm tired and lacking energy and had stomach cramps in the stages.  It wasn't ideal because just one small mistake means it's easy to hit a rock or tree stump on the edge of the road.  The roads will be cleaner now but I must keep an eye on my rivals as tactics may come into play to gain a better start position tomorrow."

Pos- No- Driver-Time-Diff Next- Diff 1st1. 4 J. LATVALA 18:24.8 0.0 0.02. 1 S. LOEB 18:28.0 +3.2 +3.23. 11 P. SOLBERG 18:33.4 +5.4 +8.64. 3 M. HIRVONEN 18:34.3 +0.9 +9.55. 21 M. ÖSTBERG 18:34.6 +0.3 +9.86. 12 S. OGIER 18:35.2 +0.6 +10.47. 6 H. SOLBERG 18:39.6 +4.4 +14.88. 7 E. NOVIKOV 18:41.5 +1.9 +16.79. 2 D. SORDO 18:54.4 +12.9 +29.610. 10 K. AL QASSIMI 18:55.2 +0.8 +30.411. 9 F. VILLAGRA 19:00.4 +5.2 +35.612. 8 C. RAUTENBACH 19:05.7 +5.3 +40.913. 5 M. WILSON 19:21.3 +15.6 +56.514. 38 M. PROKOP 19:38.4 +17.1 +1:13.615. 145 P. FLODIN 19:49.3 +10.9 +1:24.516. 146 P. SANDELL 19:54.2 +4.9 +1:29.417. 147 A. ARAUJO 19:58.1 +3.9 +1:33.318. 32 M. KOSCIUSZKO 20:02.4 +4.3 +1:37.619. 63 J. NIKARA 20:03.1 +0.7 +1:38.320. 39 A. BETTEGA 20:03.9 +0.8 +1:39.1

Loeb creeping up the Leaderboard

Overall positions after SS3Pos- No- Driver- Time- Diff Next- Diff 1st1. 4 Jari-Matti LATVALA M 42:40.2 0.0 0.02. 1 Sébastien LOEB M 42:54.8 +14.6 +14.63. 3 Mikko HIRVONEN M 42:58.5 +3.7 +18.34. 11 Petter SOLBERG 43:01.4 +2.9 +21.25. 12 Sébastien OGIER 43:06.4 +5.0 +26.26. 7 Evgeny NOVIKOV M 43:12.2 +5.8 +32.07. 21 Mads ÖSTBERG 43:13.3 +1.1 +33.18.  6 Henning SOLBERG M 43:18.2 +4.9 +38.09. 2 Dani SORDO M 43:42.6 +24.4 +1:02.410. 10 Khalid AL QASSIMI M 44:05.0 +22.4 +1:24.811. 8 Conrad RAUTENBACH M 44:11.2 +6.2 +1:31.012. 9 Federico VILLAGRA M 44:18.3 +7.1 +1:38.113. 5 Matthew WILSON M 44:25.2 +6.9 +1:45.014. 38 Martin PROKOP J 46:01.2 +1:36.0 +3:21.015. 145 Patrick FLODIN P 46:06.0 +4.8 +3:25.816. 147 Armindo ARAUJO P 46:12.6 +6.6 +3:32.417. 146 Patrik SANDELL P 46:13.7 +1.1 +3:33.518. 63 Jarkko NIKARA  46:18.8 +5.1 +3:38.619. 150 Nasser AL-ATTIYAH P 46:29.7 +10.9 +3:49.520. 39 Alessandro BETTEGA J 46:38.7 +9.0 +3:58.5