The preparations are complete. The route has been recced, pace notes have been made, the drivers have tested the set-up of their cars and last night they crossed the starting line at the ceremonial start in Limassol’s Palais de Sport ahead of a concert by Greek singer Sakis Rouvas.

The race proper starts at 8am from the Service Park in the heart of the Yermasoyia tourist area of Limassol. Heading the field is World Champion Sebastien Loeb, co-driven by Daniel Elena, hoping to extend the re-branded Citroen Racing team’s winning sequence in their Citroen C4 WRC which features an eye-catching new livery, unveiled at the Service Park on Wednesday.

Loeb’s Citroen team-mate Dani Sordo competed in Cyprus in 2006 and needs a good finish to stay in touch on the championship leaderboard. He was fastest on the shakedown, just three-hundredths of a second quicker than Petter Solberg.

With a 10-point lead in the FIA Manufacturers’ Championship, Citroen’s main challenge is likely to come from the BP Ford Abu Dhabi World Rally Team of Finnish drivers Jari-Matti Latvala and Mikko Hirvonen. Hirvonen is six points adrift of Loeb in the Drivers’ standings after the first two events – in Ireland and Norway.

Other drivers to look out for include Briton Matthew Wilson and Norway’s Henning Solberg in the Stobart Team Fords, Zimbabwe’s Conrad Rautenbach, Frenchman Sebastien Ogier and Russia’s Evgeny Novikov driving Citroen Junior Team C4s, and former Subaru driver Petter Solberg, who returns to the island in a privately-run Citroen Xsara. Argentina’s Federico Villagra is entered in the Munchi’s Team Focus RS.

Other contenders known to Cypriot fans are Toshi Arai, Khalid Al Kassimi and Nasser Al-Attiyah.

Heading the local contingent are the winners of the last two Cyprus Rallies, when it counted for the Middle East Rally Championship – Charalambos Timotheou and Nicos Thomas, both driving Mitsubishi Lancer Evo Ixs.

Ahead of the drivers are 1,198 kilometres, including 332 km of special stages. New FIA regulations mean that events can now incorporate both gravel and asphalt stage surfaces, so today’s racing is over six new asphalt stages, driven once in the morning, and again in the afternoon. The cars will return to the service park for the overnight rest at five thirty this afternoon.

Days 2 and 3 will be run over gravel stages, and the rally finished on the seafront in Yermasoyia at twenty past two on Sunday afternoon.