TOYOTA GAZOO Racing World Rally Team driver Kalle Rovanperä leads after a demanding first day on unfamiliar roads at the Rally del Paraguay.
The FIA World Rally Championship’s inaugural visit to the central South American country has been a trip into the unknown for the teams and drivers, but they have been met with the warmest of welcomes by the passionate local fans. After the pre-event reconnaissance and shakedown – with the vital tasks of making pacenotes and refining setups for the fast but challenging red gravel roads – a spectacular ceremonial start launched the event in host city Encarnación on Thursday evening.
Friday’s opening leg was the longest of the rally, featuring two loops of four stages totalling 140.9 competitive kilometres. The first stage, Cambyretá, would prove to be the most demanding of the day with many large bumps and compressions providing a test for cars and tyres, but TGR-WRT made a good start with Rovanperä quickest ahead of his team-mates Sébastien Ogier and Sami Pajari.
Ogier would lose more than half a minute in SS2 with tyre damage, just as Takamoto Katsuta had done in SS1, but Rovanperä ended the morning loop in second place, 4.1 seconds from the lead, with Pajari holding onto third ahead of a chasing pack of more experienced drivers that included Elfyn Evans.
In the afternoon it would be the second pass of Yerbatera, the rally’s longest stage at 30 kilometres, that would prove to be the most eventful. Rovanperä regained the rally lead from Adrien Fourmaux, who sustained a loss of tyre pressure, and would end the day with an advantage of seven seconds over the Hyundai duo of Fourmaux and Ott Tänak.
After his earlier setback, Ogier was the quickest driver over the rest of the day and climbed up from eighth to fourth place, 17.8s from the lead. Evans is one position and 3.3s further back in fifth.
Pajari was enjoying his fight with more experienced drivers on the level playing field of a brand-new rally until he had to stop and change a wheel and tyre in the eventful SS7, costing him two minutes and dropping him to eighth overall. Katsuta also hit trouble in that stage, running wide and hitting a bank and bringing an early end to his day.
Quotes:
Juha Kankkunen (Deputy Team Principal)
“It has been a very interesting first day of rallying here in Paraguay. The stages seem to be fast but very tricky in places, and we’ve seen things changing a lot during the day. Seb lost some time this morning with the tyre damage, but he’s been very fast and got back into the game. The long stage this afternoon was good for Kalle because he could retake the lead, but not so much for Sami and Taka. Still, it’s an interesting fight with three of our cars in the top five and it’s all quite tight, so the battle will be on tomorrow.”
Elfyn Evans (Driver car 33)
“It’s been a pretty tough day. I think the conditions are tough for everybody, as we discovered in the shakedown, with grip levels that are very changeable and overall pretty low. With the very hard-packed clay surface, it’s been difficult to get a good feeling. Tomorrow there will be a lot more loose gravel in sections and road order will probably have more of an effect than it did today. The feeling might improve in those conditions, but we’re working to try and find something to be better.”
Kalle Rovanperä (Driver car 69)
“It’s good to be in the lead. Today we had tricky stages to discover for the first time. We tried to be fast, but aside from the first stage this morning, we didn’t really have the last bit of pace we would have liked. On the other hand, we stayed out of trouble when many others had issues and that has paid off. I’m happy to have the best possible starting position for tomorrow with the greater road cleaning effect we’re expecting, and hopefully we can use that well.”
Sébastien Ogier (Driver car 17)
“We started the day with a good rhythm so it was a bit disappointing to lose the time with the tyre damage in SS2. The only thing we could do then was try to fight back, and after that misfortune we can be happy with the rest of our day. I was pushing hard and we had to show our real speed without holding much back, which was enjoyable. It was especially important to improve our starting position for tomorrow, given the cleaning we are all expecting, and even if we are still some way from the lead, we are at least in a place where we can fight.”
Takamoto Katsuta (Driver car 18)
“It was unfortunate that we had tyre damage on the first stage, and for the rest of the morning I was trying to avoid risks. The stages are difficult with a lot of grip changes, and it’s not easy to find the rhythm if you’re not pushing. The afternoon was going well, though. We were quite on the pace with nice and clean driving, without pushing too hard. The feeling was good in SS7 but on one corner the rear snapped and I wasn’t able to catch it. I’m sorry for the team but I will try my best to learn more about these stages in the remaining two days.”
Sami Pajari (Driver car 5)
“It was not a bad start for us this morning. I tried to be on it from the beginning, even in the first stage with the nasty bumpy places, and still there was room to do better because I made a small mistake at the beginning of the third stage. Still it was going pretty well and we were in the game this afternoon until we had to stop and change the tyre. It was really disappointing because we lost a lot of time and now the road position for tomorrow is not so good. But that’s the way it is and we just need to keep going.”
End of day one (Friday):
1 Kalle Rovanperä/Jonne Halttunen (Toyota GR YARIS Rally1) 1h16m13.3s
2 Adrien Fourmaux/Alexandre Coria (Hyundai i20 N Rally1) +7.1s
3 Ott Tänak/Martin Järveoja (Hyundai i20 N Rally1) +7.6s
4 Sébastien Ogier/Vincent Landais (Toyota GR YARIS Rally1) +17.8s
5 Elfyn Evans/Scott Martin (Toyota GR YARIS Rally1) +21.1s
6 Thierry Neuville/Martijn Wydaeghe (Hyundai i20 N Rally1) +25.7s
7 Josh McErlean/Eoin Treacy (Ford Puma Rally1) +1m18.4s
8 Sami Pajari/Marko Salminen (Toyota GR YARIS Rally1) +2m24.2s
9 Yohan Rossel/Arnaud Dunand (Citroën C3 Rally2) +2m57.6s
10 Nikolay Gryazin/Konstantin Aleksandrov (Škoda Fabia RS Rally2) +3m06.7s
TBC Takamoto Katsuta/Aaron Johnston (Toyota GR YARIS Rally1)
(Results as of 17:30 on Friday, for the latest results please visit www.wrc.com)
What's next?
Saturday features a trio of stages west of Encarnación each to be run twice, plus a third pass of the Friday’s Autódromo super special that will round out the morning loop prior to mid-day service. These stages are different in character to Friday’s, with a generally smoother yet looser surface, and form a total of 112.78 competitive kilometres.
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