And it all but washed away the challenge to rally leader Eugene Donnelly.

A master of the wet, he sent his Subaru Impreza splashing through the puddles of the Fogo stage to extend his lead over Tim McNulty to almost one-and-a-half minutes.

"A good day," he said, "but then it's always a good day when you're winning.

"The last stage was 'interesting'. A huge shower arrived just as we were starting the stage and we had to tiptoe a bit on our cut slicks.

"Now its all about getting through the last day, bringing the car home safe and getting the win."

McNulty was all at sea on hard compound slicks and paid the price, dropping nearly 30 seconds to the leader. And he found himself falling into the clutches of third placed Eamonn Boland who glided through on intermediate tyres to set fastest time and end the day just 13 seconds back.

But the rain brought even bigger drama behind the Irish trio and saw Mark Higgins move up to fourth place. He played the tyre card perfectly. Guy Wilks didn't.

Wilks had led the British championship section of the rally from the start, backed up by his Mitsubishi team-mate Gwyndaf Evans.

Higgins was losing ground and admitted his Subaru couldn't match the pace of the Mitsubishis.

But he gambled that the rain would come before the end of the day and fitted intermediate tyres for the final three stages. Wilks and Evans stuck with their slicks ? and came unstuck.

In the teeming rain Wilks crashed out and although Evans slithered through safely he dropped 14 seconds to the new production category leader, Higgins. They are, however, just a second apart going into today's final six stages.

Leading the Irish production runners was Colm Murphy in eighth position overall but he had a very surprised Phillip Morrow one place behind him.

The young Lisburn driver admitted he wanted to put his Mitsubishi on its trailer and head for home after transmission trouble which saw him tackling three stages with just front wheel drive, dropping from seventh to 13th.

"But the boys urged me to stay in and they changed the rear differential in eight minutes ? they were so quick they could have changed the front one as well," he laughed.

And he paid them back for their hard work by climbing back to ninth, fourth in the production category.

Another Ulsterman going strongly was Armagh teenager Darren Gass who led the S1600 class in 15th place overall in his little C2 Citroen. But at the front, Donnelly was literally cruising to his first win of the season.

Overnight positions (after stage 12): 1 Eugene Donnelly/Paul Kiely (Subaru Impreza) 1 hr 20 mins 03.7 secs; 2 Tim McNulty/Diarmuid Falvey (Subaru Impreza) + 1 min 23.3 secs; 3 Eamonn Boland/Francis Regan (Ford Focus) + 1 min 36.2 secs; 4 Mark Higgins/Rory Kennedy (Subaru Impreza N) + 3 mins 18.4 secs; 5 Gwyndaf Evans/Huw Lewis (Mitsubishi Lancer N) + 3 mins 19.6 secs; 6 Gareth Jones/James O'Brien (Ford Focus) + 4 mins 36.6 secs; 7 David Higgins/Ieuan Thomas (Toyota Corolla) + 5 mins 25.5 secs; 8 Colm Murphy/Ger Loughrey (Subaru Impreza N) + 5 mins 55.1 secs; 9 Phillip Morrow/Daniel Barritt (Mitsubishi Lancer N) + 7 mins 13.0 secs; 10 Roy White/Stephen McAuley (Mitsubishi Lancer N) + 7 mins 25.0.