The Linda McCartney Pro Cycling Team rode well again at the Tour of Langkawi in Malaysia, but were unable to show much for all their hard work today.

Once again Bjornar Vestol took the race by the scruff of the neck, going clear in a break of nine riders that made him the leader of the race on the road, not for the first time. However, once again the field reeled him in, though he didn't give up without a fight: when his break looked doomed to be captured, he took off on his own. But as the bunch toiled up the 20km ascent of Gap, he rejoined their ranks. It was a great sight to see each and every one of the team's six members in the select front group as the summit was crossed.

On the long, twisting descent, David McKenzie and Matt Stephens broke away from the main field with a combination of skill and nerves. For the first time, the race was soaked by tropical rain, and the mountain road became a slippery, stoney mudslide through the jungle. Spencer Smith was having a fine day, forcing his way through to mix it with the best climbers on the way up. But his fortunes were about to take a turn for the worse, as both he and Ciaran Power contrived to puncture within a few seconds of each other on the way down. As the bunch splintered under the pressure from David and Matt at the front, and the conditions made a reckless pursuit impossible, it was a bad time to "flat".

"I saw the yellow jersey skid on a patch of leaves and hit the deck," said Matt Stephens of the treacherous road. "People were skidding all over the place. There was even a bridge with a metal surface that we had to cross. I was going like a rocket, I don't know what was the matter with me!"

So now there were four McCartney men left at the front, as Mark Walters' yellow jersey group came back up to Matt and David, but now the numbers were severely diminished, with only 34 hardy souls remaining in contention on the stage. New Zealand champion Glenn Mitchell made a dash for glory on the sodden run-in to the line, and Linda McCartney's Ben Brooks set off in pursuit. They were joined by Trent Klasna of Saturn, and unfortunately for Ben, the more experienced men worked him over to such an extent that he fell back to the chasers. That group were by now hard on the heels of Mitchell and Klasna, but Mitchell broke the tape first, just 7 seconds clear of the others. To compound the day's frustration for the McCartneys, David McKenzie was baulked in the sprint for the line and could only manage 11th place.

The good things to take from today's race were a one-place hop up for Bjornar Vestol, 13th on the day enough to give him 8th overall now, and a leap up to now become 4th best team.

"The team rankings are calculated on your best three riders - if it was all six we'd be winning it by a mile," pointed out team manager Keith Lambert. "The other teams fear us now. They know we've still got six guys that can cause problems, where all the others have only got two or three still able to perform."