BP-Ford World Rally Team drivers Markko Martin and Michael Park ended today's opening leg of the Rally GB in fourth after a day of treacherously muddy conditions in 📖the forests of south Wales. Twice they escaped unscathed after their Ford Focus RS World Rally Car slid into ditches and they are just 35 seconds behind overnight leader Sebastien Loeb.

Team-mates Francois Duval and Stephane Prevot led this 12th round of the FIA World Rally Championship aft🍷er last night's spectacular opening speed test in the dockland area of the capital city of Cardiff. They avoided major problems in the mud but a brake problem on the final special stage cost 90 seconds and they lie seventh.

Anyone who hoped the decision to move the rally from November to September would ♒lead to drier and faster conditions over the gravel forest tracks was in for a big disappointment when they woke this morning. Heavy 🧜rain overnight and fog on high ground gave a more than passable impersonation of a traditional winter Rally GB. The only thing that had changed was that the temperature was a few degrees higher!

This morning drivers faced two identical loops of two special stages through Brechfa Fore♐st, totalling more than 115km. There was just a 10-minute tyre and refuel zone between them offering limited opportunity to make modifications to the cars. Always slippery and widely regarded as the most difficult roads on the rally, the rain made these tests evil. Two passes thr🍌ough Rheola, at 32.48km the longest special stage of the rally, ended a leg which offered 183.31km of competition.

Although there was no standing water, slimy mud made the hard packed stony roads 🐓hazardous. The more cars that passed through the stages, the more difficult conditions became, as Martin and Park discovered. After briefly sliding into a ditch during the first pass through the 27.97km Trawscoed, they had an even closer escape on the second run.

"Abou🥀t 1km from the end, we came over a crest and landed in a ditch on the left side of the road," said the 28-year-old Estonian driver. "The 🐭car bounced across the track into a ditch on the right, and back again into the same ditch on the left. It finally ended up back on the road and we carried on. I closed my eyes twice - that was how close we were to a big accident! The car picked up so much foliage from the ditches that I couldn't see through the windscreen initially and when it cleared the screen was broken."

Both incidents cost little time and Martin never finished outside the top fo🐻ur on any of the seven stages in his Castrol-branded Focus RS. "I tried hard this morning but the roads were so slippery. The conditions were so tricky that there was no difference between now and when the event was held in November. The surface this afternoon was totally different. It was less stony and I preferred it that way. We're falling away from the top three and that is sometꦿhing we must put right tomorrow," he added.

After their open🍰ing stage victory last night, Duval and Prevot settled into sixth as they avoided trouble. "Even where there wasn't mud, the hard stone base of the road meant it felt like driving on slippery cobblestones," said the 23-year-old Belgian driver. "I think it was even more slippery the second time than it was earlier, and it was so difficult to predict the conditions because the grip wasn't consistent."

He changed the settings on the differentials for the afternoon stages and that provided a better feeling with the car. But on the second pass through the Rheola test a brake problem cost one place on th😼e leaderboard. "Everything was going OK but after 16km the brake pedal went to the floor and for the rest of the stage I had just the throttle and the handbrake to work with. Apart from that it has been a good day. My pace notes have worked well. We made a few changes but nothing too much," added Duval.

BP-Ford team director Malcolm Wilson said a big impact under Duval's footwell bent the chassis and floor pan. It also broke p🍎art of the pedal box, meaning that the front brakes and clutch no longer worked. The team fitt♎ed a new pedal box during the final service this evening.