The tires were crucial at the Rallye Paraguay, the tenth run for the Rallye World Championship (WRC) in 2025, and also on Saturday afternoon and took Kalle Rovanperä (Toyota) the chance.
After the Finn led the premiere of the WRC run in South America over long distances, he suffered a tire damage during the 14th parliamentary test and fell back to sixth place from the top position.
Pech primarily benefited from Rovanperäs his team -mate Sebastien Ogier, who took the lead and goes to the closing day with a lead of 10.3 seconds ahead of his compatriot Adrien Fourmaux (Hyundai).
“Plattfuss out of nowhere” at Rovanperä
Third is Elfyn Evans (Toyota, +36.6 seconds), who does not yet have the place on the podium. The Hyundai drivers Ott Tänak and Thierry Neuville follow him with a gap of only 2.5 and 7.7 seconds.
Rovanperä, on the other hand, became a tragic hero. After led the rally since the seventh level, he was the next driver at WP 14 in a whole series that was thrown back by tire damage. The right front tire was flat in the middle of the 22.73 km long test “Artigas 2”.
“No idea. A flat foot out of nowhere,” said Rovanperä. “It wasn’t a big blow, so I don’t know. We should have changed the tire, but Jonne [Halttunen, sein Beifahrer] said we should drive through to the end. That was clearly the wrong decision. “
Ogier on course for the 65th WRC victory
By driving on the rim, Rovanperä lost 2:38 minutes to the best time. He ended six on Saturday. In view of more than one and a half minutes behind in fifth place, he can no longer improve on the end day on his own.
Top favorite for victory in Paraguay is now Ogier, which in turn was thrown back on Friday by tire damage. The eight-time world champion had overtaken compatriot Fourmaux on Saturday afternoon and is now on course for his 65th WRC victory, with which he would have finally reached the fight for the World Cup title.
The leader of the WRC2 classification also lost his chance of victory on Saturday afternoon during the 14th parlor examination due to tire damage. Nikolai Gryasin (Skoda) lost more than one and a half minutes through the flat foot and fell back to fourth in the class.
Before the final day, Robert Virves (Skoda) leads ahead of Yohan Rosell (Citroen) and Oliver Solberg (Toyota). The three are only separated from each other by XXX seconds, so that the class victory will only decide on the final day.
Then on the program at the Paraguay 2025 rally, four marks for a total of 80.1 kilometers are on the program.