Sébastien Ogier moved up to second place at Rally del Paraguay at the expense of Adrien Fourmaux.
After making up 10.2 seconds on Fourmaux across Saturday morning’s loop of four stages, Ogier began the afternoon just half a second behind his fellow Frenchman.
Throwing caution to the wind, the eight-time champion was the only Rally1 driver to take just one spare tire for the afternoon’s three stages and duly won the opening test of the loop: Carmen del Paraná.
“I did some mistake unfortunately at the beginning, then I drive a bit better, but not so easy,” Ogier said.
Fourmaux’s pace meanwhile wasn’t where it had been in the morning, as he gave up 7.3s to Ogier to slip behind by 6.8s overall.
“It’s not possible to be seven seconds faster – not with the car, it’s not possible,” said a surprised Fourmaux. “Well done to him. For me I had a really good stage but the time is not coming. It’s like that.”
Ott Tänak meanwhile overhauled his Hyundai team-mate Thierry Neuville to take fifth place by 0.2s. Elfyn Evans is 5.0s up the road.
“It’s tough in the car,” Tänak said, “but we’re doing all we can.”
Kalle Rovanperä was second fastest on SS13, 2.8s slower than Ogier to lead the event by 14.4s.
“He has been on a mission the whole weekend, he has been clearly the fastest guy,” Rovanperä said. “There’s not much else we can do to match him to be honest.”
