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Kris Meeke off to flying start

Kris Meeke and Chris Patterson have clearly already acclimatised to the time difference between Europe and Australia. The Citroën Total Abu Dhabi WRT crew set the fastest time in qualifying, which ensures that they will have an ideal starting position for the first leg.

The first day of Rally Australia began not far from Moonee Beach, one of the many beaches that make up Australia's Gold Coast. On gravel roads covered with a fine layer of dust, the crews first of all completed two runs in free practice.

They then attempted set the fastest time on the 5.54km-long qualifying stage, but it was Kris Meeke that prevailed in the no.3 DS3 WRC. "This rally will definitely be the dustiest of the season. It's all about road position here. It was therefore really important to get a good qualifying result in order to be good position to tackle the first day," stressed the Northern Irishman. "It's always nice to be the fastest and I'd like to thank the team for their support. I didn't do any testing in preparation for this event, so we decided on the set-up based on the data. With first choice of road position, I'll be able to adapt my pace more easily than my rivals."

Sixth-fastest in qualifying, Mikko Hirvonen wasn't quite so pleased with this opening test: "It wasn't a dream start, for sure, but I just couldn't find the right turn of speed on this stage. That's the way it goes, I guess, so now I need to focus on the race. The first day features a lot of very twisty, technical stages, whereas the next two days are a lot quicker. Although I won't have the ideal starting position, I'm going to fight and I hope I can be among the leaders."

Meanwhile, Khalid Al-Qassimi set the morning's ninth fastest time. "There are a lot of new stages compared with 2011. Like the qualifying stage, the roads are very quick and there's pretty much no room for error," assessed the Abu Dhabi driver. "It will be difficult to find the right pace, especially for me, as I'll be second on the road. Most of all, I'll need to build up my confidence in the car."

When it came to selecting their starting positions, predictably enough, the Citroën crews opted to start as far back as possible. Khalid Al-Qassimi, Mikko Hirvonen and Kris Meeke will therefore start from second, fifth and tenth places respectively tomorrow.

The race officially gets under way with two runs on the Coffs Harbour super special stage. Tomorrow, the crews will tackle ten timed stages over a total of 91km...