Storm-force winds and heavy rain early at Rally del Paraguay’s Encarnación service park on Saturday morning has left multiple World Rally Championship teams with damage to their service areas.
Service areas belonging to M-Sport and Teo Martín Motorsport, plus other outdoor temporary structures related to the rally were mangled, blown away or collapsed by storm conditions. M-Sport had to pack away its trademark blue domed tents entirely and migrate to a rented structure in its place.
Its team principal Rich Millener was awoken just after 5am to the thrashing noise of wind blowing forcefully.
“It was like something out of Twister,” Millener told DirtFish. “It was incredible, so strong, at which point you know that there isn’t much left of the service park. So we had to let it die down, wait for it to pass because it was too dangerous to even go outside to be honest.
M-Sport has had to clear away its regular service area after damage sustained overnight
“It obviously woke most of the team up. We had a plan to come in straight away and have a look and see what had happened. But yeah, as expected, it kind of all collapsed and lots of damage. Everybody’s in and we’ve had to pack up our service [area] and move it into one of the rented tents we have here for the rest of the weekend.
“I think in some ways we probably got off lightly compared to some of the privateer teams. But yeah, it was very localised, but… Incredibly powerful.”
“We were lucky it struck when it did and there was nobody here because it was so powerful.”
The storm conditions were heavily localized in nature and conditions out on the Paraguay stages are better than those in the service park. But there is a looming threat of further bad weather today and tomorrow, which could mean the service park takes another battering.
“Well, it can’t get any worse than what we’ve got in this situation,” said Millener.
Structures related to the rally organization itself have also been affected
“[The weather] could be worse again tomorrow or same again tomorrow, so obviously we need to try and make sure that we’re prepped for that as well. But there’s still a rally going on, so we’ll try and work around that. Because you know, people are probably watching the rally and see the stages as dry, [and] don’t see anything going on. It’s very localized but yeah a part of the fun.”
All cars have left Saturday morning parc fermé on time at time of writing and the rally itinerary remains unaffected.
