Sébastien Ogier leads Rally del Paraguay by 29.2s as the rain arrived on Sunday morning
Photography by Toyota
Words by Luke Barry
Sébastien Ogier’s Rally del Paraguay lead ballooned to 29.2 seconds as the rain arrived and second-placed Adrien Fourmaux made a mistake.
The threat of rain had hung over Sunday’s final loop of four stages, and drivers’ worst fears were realized as it duly appeared.
Paraguayan WRC2 driver Fabrizio Zaldivar had warned that rain could make the stages perilous, and the first three cars on the road – Grégoire Munster, Josh McErlean and Takamoto Katsuta – all slid straight off at the same left-hander right at the start of the stage.
Conditions however did seem to improve for the later runners, with localized rain showers making grip at each corner impossible to guess.
That didn’t stop second-placed Fourmaux being caught out, as he skated off a tight corner and lost close to 20s struggling to restart his Hyundai.
“We had an overshoot and the car didn’t restart, so we lost all our time there. It’s really a shame, but it’s OK,” Fourmaux said.
Fourmaux's hopes of a maiden WRC win look to be over this weekend
Elfyn Evans was also caught out as he briefly went off, which cost him third place to Ott Tänak – the championship leader now trailing his rival by 2.2s.
Evans was however as much as 7.9s behind on the splits, so did well to claw the stage deficit back to 4.7s.
“I just couldn’t get stopped for a left-hander, I was off on the outside and stalled and reversed. I’m surprised to have lost so little.”
World champion Thierry Neuville had a scare on the way to the stages on Sunday morning with a water leak but he was able to fix it and keep his fifth position.
Ogier meanwhile won the stage by 0.2s over Tänak to also take the lead of the Super Sunday standings.
“We were all fearing these conditions, and now we got them,” Ogier said. “I didn’t dare to trust many places and I was a bit too careful, but that’s the better approach I believe.”
Words:Luke Barry
Tags: Rally del Paraguay, Rally del Paraguay 2025, WRC, WRC 2025
Publish Date August 31, 2025 DirtFish
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