Kalle Rovanperä has taken the early lead of Rally del Paraguay but Ott Tänak, Thierry Neuville, Takamoto Katsuta and Grégoire Munster all got off to tricky starts.
Many drivers picked out the opening Cambyretá stage as one of the key tests of the whole event given its numerous bumps and jumps, and the fact it was the first proper taste of rallying in Paraguay.
Rovanperä felt the compressions were too much at such high speed, but nevertheless set the pace by a strong 3.2 seconds over Sébastien Ogier.
He said: “It’s not so fun in the car, at least in this stage. All this compression at high speed is way too rough in the car, it’s not so comfortable.”
But at least the Finn started the rally strongly, which could not be said for two of his fellow world champions.
Ott Tänak had been quicker than Rovanperä on the initial splits, but lost 8.4s by the end – arriving to the stop control with his wipers dislodged from his windshield.
“We had some very bad compressions and obviously it was not nice for the car,” Tänak explained. “Crashing through a lot.”
Thierry Neuville meanwhile was even slower, losing a massive 14.3s.
He said: “I was crashing through everywhere and I was sure I was breaking the car, I had to slow down. We had a massive, massive landing and it could have been the end, honestly. We need to work on the car to be better protected and find something to have better speed. Lots of surprises.”
Katsuta fared worse as the Japanese driver lost over 45s with a front-left puncture, but Munster suffered the worst as he stopped just 900 meters into the rally – pictured working on the front-right of his Ford Puma. He eventually completed the stage, albeit after losing over 40 minutes.
M-Sport team-mate Josh McErlean also suffered a wild moment as co-driver Eoin Treacy lost grip of his pacenotes on landing from a jump.
“Over a crest and it just crashed out, I went blank, he dropped his pacenotes and it was 400m to the next junction so it was good to have that time but… holy god,” McErlean said.
Overall, Sami Pajari and Adrien Fourmaux tied for third fastest time, 4.8s off the pace with championship leader Elfyn Evans an early fifth – 7.7s off Rovanperä.
Tänak and Neuville are sixth and seventh, with McErlean eighth and Katsuta ninth.
