WRC 2026 Rd.11 Day 2 | 2026 | PRESS RELEASE | WRC

Rally del Paraguay: Day 2 Pajari extends Paraguay advantage for TGR-WRT

2026.08.29 (Sat)

TOYOTA GAZOO Racing World Rally Team driver Sami Pajari has increased his lead at Rally del Paraguay ahead of the final day.

With rain forecasted to create challenging conditions for the last two days of the rally, the team fitted snorkels – as seen usually on Safari Rally Kenya – to its five GR YARIS Rally1 cars in service on Friday evening to keep them running reliably in case of deep water crossings.

As it turned out, while heavy rain and strong winds would hit the service park in the early hours of Saturday, the day’s nine stages would remain largely dry, with tyre management instead becoming the main consideration once more on the abrasive stages.

Pajari came into the day with a lead of 11.9 seconds over Hayden Paddon of Hyundai, and opened that up to 26s within the first three stages of the day. He did lose part of his rear wing when running wide in SS11, but returned to mid-day service with his margin standing at 22.8s. With a well-managed afternoon loop, Pajari ended the day leading by 24.1s as he looks to secure what would be a third consecutive victory.

Championship leader Elfyn Evans remains in third position overall after a clean and solid day, with a reduced margin of 3.3s over a hard-charging Adrien Fourmaux (Hyundai).

Oliver Solberg continued his recovery from time lost on Friday and moved up into fifth overall on the day’s closing super special in Encarnación.

Sébastien Ogier and Takamoto Katsuta both restarted after their cars were repaired following damage sustained on Friday. Ogier claimed stage wins in both passes through the Trinidad stage while Katsuta was quickest in the Encarnación Costanera super special.

Diego Domínguez continues to lead WRC2 on home roads ahead of fellow GR Yaris Rally2 driver Gus Greensmith, with 24.3s between them. TGR WRC Challenge Program driver Yuki Yamamoto restarted after being stopped by a technical issue on Friday, gathering valuable experience on his first appearance in Paraguay.

Quotes:
Juha Kankkunen (Deputy Team Principal)
“In the end, today was a much calmer day than yesterday, which I think was welcome. Everybody had gone out with wet weather setups expecting the rain, but it remained pretty dry on the stages. Still, it was not easy out there and you needed to take care with the tyres but all our drivers did a good job. Sami has been able to increase the lead and Elfyn is doing what he needs to do, even if Adrien is pushing very hard behind. Let’s see if the rain now comes for tomorrow, because we know that can make things very challenging, so nothing is decided yet.”

Elfyn Evans (Driver car 33)
“Our day started pretty well with the fastest time in the first stage. Then in the second stage there were already some huge rocks around so I played it safe, and it was a similar story in the mud later in the loop. This afternoon we took some hard tyres and it’s difficult to know if that was the correct decision or not, but we were concerned about the wear after yesterday. Adrien has been charging hard and had a strong day, and it was a surprise to lose so much time in the super special, but we can expect more difficult conditions tomorrow and just need to keep doing the best we can.”

Sébastien Ogier (Driver car 1)
“Today wasn’t the easiest one with nothing to really fight for, but we just focused on trying to enjoy the driving with this car as much as we could and I think we had a decent rhythm. The rain didn’t come as expected but there was some dampness in the last stage of the loop and we managed to take a stage win there, and another one in the afternoon. Tomorrow maybe some rain is still coming, and let’s see what we can do to try to grab some points.”

Oliver Solberg (Driver car 99)
“We were hoping to have some rain today to make things exciting for us. Unfortunately it didn’t come but it still hasn’t been a bad day. The main goal was just to stay clean and try to catch McErlean and we were able to do that, and it’s good to get back up to fifth. It was tricky with the tyres as we didn’t have as many good spares as others to rotate around, but we managed OK. Tomorrow maybe the rain will come and we’ll try our best whatever happens.”

Takamoto Katsuta (Driver car 18)
“Everybody was expecting that it would be quite wet today but the rain never really came. At least with the dry conditions I could just focus on recovering after what happened yesterday. A big thank you to the team for fixing the car so that I could drive again, gain experience on these stages and try to get back the feeling ahead of tomorrow, when I want to try to take some points.”

Sami Pajari (Driver car 5)
“We can be happy with today. The conditions were still quite tricky, even if they were a lot more straightforward than the heavy rain we were expecting. Still we had some moments, losing part of the rear wing when we ran slightly wide in one corner, which affected the handling in the high-speed sections, but it was not a big drama. Otherwise the car was quick and reliable and we were able to extend our lead over the day. Like in Estonia and Finland, I’m not getting too excited yet because a lot can still happen and the weather could be hard to predict again.”

End of day two (Saturday):
1 Sami Pajari/Marko Salminen (Toyota GR YARIS Rally1) 2h48m29.7s
2 Hayden Paddon/John Kennard (Hyundai i20 N Rally1) +24.1s
3 Elfyn Evans/Scott Martin (Toyota GR YARIS Rally1) +56.3s
4 Adrien Fourmaux/Alexandre Coria (Hyundai i20 N Rally1) +59.6s
5 Oliver Solberg/Elliott Edmondson (Toyota GR YARIS Rally1) +3m25.7s
6 Josh McErlean/Eoin Treacy (Ford Puma Rally1) +3m32.0s
7 Diego Domínguez/Rogelio Peñate (Toyota GR Yaris Rally2) +6m20.4s
8 Jon Armstrong/Shane Byrne (Ford Puma Rally1) +6m40.0s
9 Gus Greensmith/Jonas Andersson (Toyota GR Yaris Rally2) +6m44.7s
10 Fau Zaldivar/Marcelo Der Ohannesian (Škoda Fabia RS Rally2) +7m33.6s
39 Sébastien Ogier/Vincent Landais (Toyota GR YARIS Rally1) +1h04m10.3s
45 Takamoto Katsuta/Aaron Johnston (Toyota GR YARIS Rally1) +1h19m37.5s
(Results as of 20:00 on Saturday, for the latest results please visit www.wrc.com)

What's next?
Five stages will conclude the rally on Sunday totalling 66.35 competitive kilometres. The day starts and ends with the new Encarnación stage on the edge of the host city with the second pass serving as the Power Stage.