A South African Safari?
In terms of tribulations and drama, we haven’t seen a Friday like that for a while in the World Rally Championship, have we?
Rally del Paraguay truly delivered, with some key narratives standing out from the weekend.
Here’s what we learned from Rally del Paraguay 2026:
Pajari is Evans’ only challenger
Even after back-to-back wins for Sami Pajari in Estonia and Finland, the consensus among many was the 2026 was Elfyn Evans’ championship to lose.
Are you so confident now? I know I’m not.
Evans still fundamentally has the advantage. He has more points (even if his lead shrunk from 30 to 20 in Paraguay) and, potentially crucially, has more experience, having fought for all but one of the world titles this decade.
But Pajari’s in a rhythm that looks so menacing that he can only be seen as a colossal threat to the Welshman.
Becoming the first driver to win three events in a row after their maiden WRC victory is impressive enough, but becoming world champion at just 25 (which he will be by the final round) in only his second full season at the top level is even more so.
And that really isn’t an absurd possibility.
As for the rest? Oliver Solberg is now up to third but 41 points adrift, with Takamoto Katsuta’s zero-pointer leaving him 56 down. As for Ogier, he’s not even the leading Frenchman anymore…
Ogier’s definitely not going to be champion
In fairness to Sébastien Ogier, he’d already acknowledged that his championship chances were “more or less gone” after his crash from the lead in Finland left him 62 points behind with four rounds remaining.
I wasn’t so sure. The odds were working against him, but ruling Ogier out is a fool’s game.
After Paraguay, however, I think it’s fair to say he won’t be wearing the crown for a 10th time – this season, at least.
Two punctures in two stages, and then suspension damage on the third which forced him out for the day, left Ogier pretty upset with Hankook in particular; don’t forget he lost victory in Portugal to a penultimate stage puncture.
The net result is Ogier failed to finish in the points for the third time this season, and second rally in a row, meaning his championship deficit is now a whopping 68 with only 105 left to claim.
Fourmaux continues to wait
In a world of division, can we all agree on something? Adrien Fourmaux deserves to be a World Rally Championship event winner.
His Hyundai career is increasingly becoming a tale of what might have beens; Paraguay was just the latest chapter.
No single Rally1 driver escaped any sort of trouble last weekend, but no other Rally1 driver displayed the same sort of performance as Fourmaux, either.
A tire change and delamination left him 55s behind series leader Evans after Friday, but by Saturday evening the Frenchman was just 3.3s behind.
Winning nine of the rally’s 22 stages (almost double what any of his rivals managed), once more Fourmaux demonstrated that he’s a WRC winner in waiting, whenever the stars choose to align.
Hyundai underutilized Paddon
Finding a Tarmac driver has always been a problem for Hyundai when it’s rotated drivers in its third seat.
It didn’t work for Andreas Mikkelsen two years ago, and it didn’t even work for Sébastien Loeb before him either.
Considering he claimed a podium in Croatia, it wouldn’t be fair to outright say it hasn’t worked with Hayden Paddon this time around. But there’s certainly few who’d say he’s a more accomplished Tarmac driver than gravel.
Paraguay proved it once and for all.
Bang on the pace from the word go, Paddon led the rally early on before a tire change dropped him back. But he was never outside the podium places and finished as the top Hyundai in second place.
Which makes you wonder: what more could he achieved this season if afforded more gravel running?
Armstrong still in a Friday slump
Jon Armstrong’s birthday falls on a Friday this year. The way things are going, that might be one of few times he experiences that ‘Friday feeling’ in 2026…
The M-Sport driver’s struggled for form on the opening full leg of WRC events of late, sometimes through his own doing but other times because of misfortune.
In Paraguay it was a mix of both: a tire failed on Armstrong’s Puma Rally1, and the flailing rubber damaged his front brakes, leading to a violent snap and a clatter against a bank. But could he have driven more carefully with the front puncture?
Either way the result was Armstrong again failed to have a clean Friday, and to make matters worse he smacked a bank on Sunday and destroyed the rear suspension, retiring from the event.
All while his M-Sport team-mate Josh McErlean was fighting for the lead on Friday and delivered an equal best WRC finish in sixth.
Virves is human after all
Robert Virves already has a hand on the WRC2 title this year, so what happened in Paraguay is likely of little consequence – unless he’s obsessed with stats and craved a fifth win from as many starts.
But what the Estonian did show is that he is still susceptible to mistakes, crashing his Škoda on the first special stage.
Had he not built up such a lead in the championship, perhaps we would question how this accident could affect his momentum. As it is, the championship was never going to be won in Paraguay anyway – even if Virves won the event.
So instead, all eyes shift to next week’s Rally Chile, where the Estonian has his first chance to crown himself champion.
Congratulations to Diego Domínguez too, who drove superbly on home ground to claim his first ever WRC2 win ahead of Gus Greensmith.
