htaccess重定向保留一个段

I want to rewrite url like /myapplication/argument1/argument2 to /api/index.php/argument1/argument2

File index.php will handles all url that start with /myapplication/

Currently my htaccess looks like :

RewriteRule ^applicationpreleveur/(.*)$ ./api/index.php/$1

It keeps "applicationpreleveur" on the url when I see

var_dump(explode('/',$_SERVER['REQUEST_URI']));

I believe that only the segment between parenthesis will be preserved ?

My second question is how can I pass get or post data ?

Thanks you

Regards