World rally has arrived in Mexico, and it's been a good season so far. We've had three separate winners at the three previous rallys, and to add to the excitement of the Mexico rally, Subaru has launched their 2007 spec Impreza.

This year, Sebastien Loeb, the winner of the past two championships, has uncharacteristicly struggled. The 2007 Citroen C4 has not been the all-dominating car that the Xara was in previous years. Ford, last year's championship winning manufacturer, is again leading the manufacturer championship with two wins out of three this year, one for each of their drivers.

Petter Solberg, the 2002 world champion, has his new Subaru Impreza this race, and traditionally the Impreza has been a good car on gravel races. The Ford too is a good car on the loose surface events, especially with Marcus Gronholm at the helm.

Day 1

Marcus Gronholm started the rally as the leader in the championship, and so had to sweep the stages on the first day, a traditional gravel rally disadvantage, and because of that his team mate Miko Hirvonen is faster over these initial stages. Hemming Solberg had a flip on the first stage, damaging the car, and losing him three minutes on the very first stage. Loeb managed to beat both the Ford times, as did the other C4. Suprisingly it was the new Subaru of Petter Solberg that showed itself to be the pace-setter early on, clinching the first stage 2.9 seconds ahead of Loeb, with Chris Atkinson in the second Subaru in third, a further 3 seconds back.

Petter Solberg went on to win the next two stages. Loeb could not seem to match the Subaru's pace, but his team mate Danni Sordo was closing slowly on the second Subaru of Chris Atkinson, currently in third. The two Ford drivers seemed to struggle with having to run through the stages first, acting as glorified road sweepers, and Marcus Gronholm and Miko Hirvonen were only able to manage fifth and sixth going into afternoon service on the first day.

The afternoon session saw the two Fords battle it out between themselves, but running first on the stages, even in the afternoon (the morning stages are repeated) causes the cars to be slower than those that start further down the order. This is due to the slower cars using less neat lines when they ran through them earlier in the day, and actualy tends to drag loose material onto the racing line. Loeb managed to be the fastest on stages four and five, and caught up to Petter Solberg during the afternoon sessions.

To add insult to injury for Petter Solberg, not only is Loeb faster but a rock went into the engine oil cooler and the new Subaru had to drop out. This handed the lead to Loeb in the C4, and second place to Chris Atkinson in the second, and now only, Subaru.

The last stage, a Super Special, sees Manfred Stohl lose control of the front end of the car, causing him to slide off into the protective tyre barrier, resulting in him losing ten seconds, and allowing Gronholm to overtake him for fifth position going into day two.

Day 2