- Leg information:
Stages: 8 (146.49 kms competitive total)
Surface: Gravel
Weather: Intermittent rain, giving way to dry weather

The opening leg of the Rally Finland started with rain, making the surfaces even more slippery and challenging than usual. Despite these difficult conditions, all the Suzukis ran reliably. In total a Suzuki Swift set four fastest stage times today, thanks to P-G Andersson, Guy Wilks and Urmo Aava, making it three Suzukis in the top six.

		P-G Andersson (3rd in JWRC after SS9): "Today has been very tricky. In the morning I actually thought it would be dry, so our set-up was too stiff and not ideal for the wet. The roads were incredibly slippery, but they dried out a bit in the middle loop of stages. We lost about 10 seconds following another car that had been off, and then the repeated stages were in quite bad condition as so many cars had been through. It was just a question of keeping in the ruts and staying out of trouble. Luckily we've had no problems at all today despite the conditions and there7s everything still to play for."
		Guy Wilks (4th in JWRC after SS9): "We got off to a sensible start and kept out of trouble, but we had a problem on SS5 when a tyre went soft halfway through the stage. Then it went down completely about a kilometre and a half from the finish and we had to drive very carefully to the end. Apart from that we've had no mechanical problems: we’ve just been gradually adjusting the set-up to suit the conditions and we'll be pushing hard tomorrow. "
		Nobuhiro'Monster' Tajima, team principal: " I am very pleased that our drivers have been sensible today in these extremely difficult and variable conditions. They have shown a lot of maturity to steer clear of problems and avoid punctures. The cars have also been entirely reliable. The real test is tomorrow − it will be a very long day with some classic stages. Good luck to everybody! "

Junior World Rally Championship classification after LEG1, Rally Finland