Scottish driver Alistair McRae currently leads the Malaysian Rally at the end of day 1 in his Proton Satria S2000.

McRae took the lead on stage 6 after early rally leader Gaurav Gill from India, slipped back with brake problems and an off road excursion that dropped the MRF driver down to third place.

Second spot is held by Gill’s team mate Katsu Taguchi from Japan, 27 seconds behind McRae.

Behind the leading three is Chris Atkinson who suffered a mysterious electrical problem in his Proton on Stage 1 and lost 18 minutes.

5th spot is held by Indonesian driver Rifat Sungkar who has to complete 80 kilometres of rallying on Day 2, with a broken gearbox as they have no spare.

McRae also leads the Asia Cup battle, ahead of Gill with Muhammad Rafiq Udhay in his MRU Subaru currently third, just 13.2 seconds in front of Sungkar.

Four drivers retired on day 1, including Karamjit Singh who went out on Stage 1 with suspension problems. Yayu Sumiyama off-shot an intersection then backed into a large hole and went no further, while his team-mate Hiroshi Yanagisawa hit a tree causing extensive damage. Yanagisawa made it to the end of Stage 4 virtually on 3 wheels, but retired on the road section heading back to service.

Tomohide Hasegawa was the final retirement on stage 7 when he got stuck in a drain. All drivers are expected to restart Day 2.