Martin on mark in Finland

Estonian Markko Martin set the pace on the opening stage of the Rally of Finland.

On the rally's shortest stage, and before it gets going with the serious hard driving today, Martin, in his Ford Focus, completed the

1.3-mile course in one minute, 18.4 seconds.

Marcus Gronholm, who has won his home rally in each of the past three years, was just 0.4secs adrift in second place.

And 0.2secs behind Gronholm's Peugeot was the Subaru belonging to Norwegian Petter Solberg. England's Richard Burns was in seventh place.