It's a brand-new rally and a brand-new country this week - so what should we expect?
Photography by Rally del Paraguay & M-Sport
Words by Mark Paulson
This week’s Rally del Paraguay is a step into the unknown for all of the World Rally Championship’s top-tier crews.
Joining the schedule alongside next month’s Rally Chile as part of back-to-back events in South America, Paraguay will offer its own unique challenges. The teams and drivers have been doing their homework on just what they might be – and some have reached a perhaps surprising conclusion.
M-Sport duo Grégoire Munster and Josh McErlean reckon that the distinctive red gravel roads and soft surface remind them of one of the WRC’s most iconic events: Safari Rally Kenya.
“I’m really looking forward to going to Paraguay,” enthused Munster. “It’s a brand-new event for everyone, which is always an exciting challenge. From the stage footage we’ve seen, the surface looks quite slippery in places – almost like Kenya – but it’s faster and more straightforward overall.
“In the mountain sections there are also some steep inclines, which will add to the challenge. It looks like a great new addition to the championship because it’s so different from what we already have on the calendar.”
The M-Sport drivers see a bit of Kenya in what they've managed to glean about Paraguay so far
McErlean added: “From what we’ve seen, the surface looks mostly clay with some fast sections and long straights, and in parts it even has a bit of a Safari feel.
“It’ll also be my first time competing in South America, which is really exciting. With Chile coming up straight afterwards, it’s a big few weeks with plenty to learn, but we’ll take it all step by step and make the most of this South American adventure.”
Those with the most knowledge, though, are the Paraguayan contingent that regularly appear in the WRC, like Fabrizio Zaldivar. The reigning WRC3 champion sat down with David Evans on Club DirtFish to provide a comprehensive guide to the rally ahead and drew some surprising comparisons to other events on the calendar.
“The rally overall is quite fast,” Zaldivar told DirtFish. “We don’t have mountains so it’s quite flat. OK, we have some small crests but especially Friday the first stage has a few jumps, so we can say it’s similar to Estonia due to the speed: it’s flowing, straight, big jumps but without many corners.
“It’s a really fast rally but the surface is a bit like Greece, though more compact rather than rough. There’s big jumps and compressions. Saturday is a bit different from the rest in terms of conditions and surface. It’s a bit more like Portugal; the road will clean so the first cars will struggle a bit.
“Many drivers are asking me to compare it to another race in the WRC but to be honest, I think there is no other event like this one.”
Based in Encarnación, near Paraguay’s border with Argentina, the rally’s stages are expected to be generally fast, albeit with some more technical sections. The soft surface is likely to get quickly rutted, which could make second-pass conditions quite different from drivers’ first run through the stages.
“It’s always a big challenge to prepare for a new rally, and especially when it’s outside of Europe and we’re not able to test there beforehand,” said championship leader Elfyn Evans.
“We’ll need to wait for the recce to really see what the stages and the conditions are like, and try to adapt the car to suit that as best as we can.”
The Toyota driver’s Hyundai rival Ott Tänak is relishing the challenge: “It’s always exciting to go to brand-new events, but it’s difficult to predict how the weekend will play out,” he said.
“We go to Rally del Paraguay with a blank sheet of paper, so the recce is the first time we can really try to understand what the rally will be like. It’s a lot of work with all the new notes, car setup and preparation.”
Nothing beats on-event experience, but the teams aren’t completely in the dark. Tänak’s team-mate Thierry Neuville explained: “We have been studying the footage shared by the event organizers and speaking to locals to get a feel of the stages.
“We can really start to refine the car setup after the recce when we know a bit more about the grip levels and our pacenotes. It’s a huge unknown for all of us, but a new challenge is exciting for us and the championship.”
That element of stepping into the unknown is particularly appealing, both to old hands like eight-time world champion Sébastien Ogier and to less experienced drivers.
“I always enjoy the challenge of a new rally like this one in Paraguay where everybody will be starting from zero, writing new pacenotes from scratch and needing to adapt as quickly as possible,” said Ogier.
Studying whatever they could before the event has been critical for the WRC's finest
His 23-year-old team-mate Sami Pajari, who made his Rally1 debut in Chile last year, is looking forward to an event which he does not start at a disadvantage compared with his more experienced rivals.
“Paraguay will be completely new for everyone, and I like it when we have new stages or a completely new event: it feels a bit more equal when everyone starts from the same position,” said Pajari.
“We don’t know so much about what the stages there will be like. From what I’ve heard and seen, it could be that the conditions are quite nice and not too rough, but we’ll find out more once we’re there.”
Hyundai’s Adrien Fourmaux is similarly motivated. “Across South America, the surfaces are really interchangeable, so the profile is unknown to all of us,” said the Frenchman.
“Our pacenotes start as a blank piece of paper, and we can only really perfect them after we have been on the stages. I’m usually more competitive on new rallies, and I know that we can target the podium in Paraguay.”
Words:Mark Paulson
Tags: Fabrizio Zaldivar, Rally del Paraguay, Rally del Paraguay 2025, WRC, WRC 2025
Publish Date August 26, 2025 DirtFish 
https://dirtfish-editorial.s3-accelerate.amazonaws.com/2025/08/JcNlbs21-LIV_1476-780x520.jpg August 26, 2025
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