Gronholm and Burns level

Richard Burns' Subaru crashes through Cardiff's puddles

World title rivals Marcus Gronholm of Finland and Britain's Richard Burns tied in the opening stage of the season-ending Rally of Great Britain on Thursday.

Peugeot's Gronholm, nine points ahead of his Subaru rival, only needs a fifth place finish in the rally to win the title.

Burns on the other hand must win and hope the Finn fails to score two points when the event roars to a finish on Sunday.

The two drivers began their decisive duel with a head-to-head in the opening special stage run on a purpose-built circuit in the docklands of Cardiff.

But 2.43 km of churned mud and gravel failed to separate them.

Mud-soaked

Burns made a blistering start to the 1.5 mile long super special stage and he left Gronholm trailing in the mud-soaked slipstream after Wales had been deluged by torretial rain.

Gronholm had joked he would prefer to use a boat, but he fought back under the floodlights as they both crossed the line in 2 minutes 21.5 seconds.

They were not the fastest as the Ford duo of Carlos Sainz and Colin McRae both posted faster times, with the Spaniard seeing off his team-mate by 0.7 secs in their shoot-out.

But it was the Subaru of Burns' team-mate Juha Kankkunen, the four-times world champion, who posted the quickest time of the main field with a time of 2:19.5.