How Pajari tamed punishing Paraguay to create WRC history

When World Rally Championship drivers predict a rally will be all about survival and like a "second Safari" before a wheel has been turned, eyebrows were definitely raised. But Rally Paraguay lived up to those predictions as the South American nation's unique mix of polished and rough clay/gravel stages served up one of the wildest rallies in recent memory.

All the talk before the event had surrounded the chaos-inducing "Niagara Falls" level of deluge forecast, as Toyota's Oliver Solberg eloquently described it. Somehow that avoided the stages and instead storm force winds and heavy rain did their best to destroy the Encarnacion service park at 5am on Saturday, sending temporary structures flying. Luckily nobody was hurt in the freak weather event. But what really transformed Paraguay into a battle of survival was the 70km plus stage loops, rough roads and hot temperatures on Friday that literally ripped tyres to shreds. 

To tame a rally of this nature required clever driving and a fair share of luck which Toyota's in-form Sami Pajari and co-driver Marko Salminen showed in abundance, as the pair claimed their latest impressive victory by 25.8s from Hyundai’s Hayden Paddon who made the most of a first topflight gravel outing since 2018. It was a victory that created a unique piece of WRC history as Pajari and Salminen became the first crew to claim their first three WRC wins back-to-back-to-back, having previously triumphed in Estonia and Finland. Not only was the win history-making, it underlined Pajari’s growing WRC title credentials, now lurking only 20 points behind championship leader Elfyn Evans with three rounds remaining.  

“It makes the win taste even more sweeter [when the rally is so tough],” Pajari told Autosport. “Someone told me that nobody has ever done it [claim their first three WRC wins in a row] before so it makes it really special. It was a crazy rally and we expected heavy rains and it was not only our team that was wrong with the forecast. Everyone was talking about the crazy rain that was coming and it never arrived on the stages. It hit the service park badly and many [team] tents were actually flying.

“I tried to be clever with my driving and now when you look back and it looks exactly like that is what we did. We didn't need to stop to change tyres on any stage. I don't know [why we avoided punctures] maybe it was lucky in one way and also I was trying to avoid as many stones as I could. It was not only about being flat out from start to finish, which is quite different compared to Estonia, Finland. Here you just need to manage.”

This clever, measured approach is perhaps best outlined by the fact Pajari won only one of the 22 stages. Although the Finn was one of two Rally1 drivers not to be delayed by a puncture or tyre delamination, his rally was not without a scare or two. A water leak on his GR Yaris on Friday morning restricted his speed, which left Pajari sitting as low as seventh after two stages. The issue was soon rectified and Pajari began to climb the leaderboard as one by one his rivals hit trouble, mostly tyre related.

Pajari capitalised on tyre woes for championship leader Evans and Paddon to move into an 11.9s lead over the latter heading into Saturday. Just like he showcased when he took the lead in Estonia and Finland, the 24-year-old was cool, calm and unflappable despite the dangers that lurked. 

Pajari's measured approach paid off in style

Photo by: Toyota Racing

Pajari produced a mature drive through Saturday's stages, which remained dry, much to the surprise of the teams that opted for wet weather set ups, with Toyota and M-Sport even donning Safari style snorkels to their cars in anticipation of heavy rain. 

What will be troubling Pajari's rivals is that he seems in control at all times. Even a scare in stage 11 when he ripped off part of his GR Yaris' rear wing after running wide into a ditch was barely a footnote for the Finn. 

Pajari took a 24.1s lead over Paddon into the final day but never seemed under pressure as he went on to take a win that has cut the gap to championship leader Evans to 20 points. As Pajari put it, the title race is “on” for the latest WRC history-maker and if this form continues in Chile next week, it won’t be long before he is the favourite.  

Puncture lottery fuelled frenetic Friday

So much focus had been attached to the expected incoming torrential rain on Saturday and Sunday that crews had suggested Friday as being the easiest day of the three, but it was far from that. Last year's Paraguay winner Sebastien Ogier was quick to recognise the challenge that Friday would pose: “This weekend will be a lottery. Tomorrow [Friday] it's a puncture lottery, and after that it's going to be very complicated with the conditions.”

"We were pretty right with the madness that we expected to happen on Friday. I don’t want to repeat it again, but you know what the situation is. Nobody is happy about it and me being the first one" Sebastien Ogier

As Ogier correctly predicted, surviving Friday's stages was indeed a lottery, which the reigning world champion and the majority of Rally1 crews didn't win. After only three stages Paraguay's roads bared their teeth as three Rally1 crews found themselves on the retirement list. Less than 24 hours after topping the shakedown, Toyota's Takamoto Katsuta was caught out and rolled his GR Yaris early into the opening Cambyreta test. It was the first of two violent rolls, the second, the most frightening, caused officials to cancel stage 21 with Katsuta and co-driver Aaron Johnson taken to hospital for precautionary checks. But Katsuta’s initial retirement was a sign of the bucket load of drama that followed in what will be remembered as one of the WRC's wildest Fridays.

Minutes later Ogier's prediction came true courtesy of a left-rear puncture that was replicated for Hyundai's Thierry Neuville moments later. Both opted to press on rather than stop and change the wheel, and while Ogier lost a handful of seconds, Neuville was duly punished with terminal suspension failure.       

But Ogier soon joined Katsuta and Neuville on the retirements list. Clipping a bank in stage two resulted in a fron- left puncture which required a wheel change mid-stage. Upon closer inspection the impact damaged the suspension and despite an attempt to repair it, Ogier came to a halt in stage three. Having already lost a likely victory to a puncture in Portugal this year Ogier's frustrations with the Hankook tyres was clear. 

Sebastien Ogier, Toyota Gazoo Racing WRT Toyota GR Yaris Rally1

Photo by: Toyota Racing

“I’m a bit lost for words. It is definitely not the standard for a world championship [referring to the tyres]. It is just a lottery all the time. It is far from acceptable,” Ogier told Autosport.

Ogier had calmed down by the end of the rally after salvaging nine points from Super Sunday, putting his disappointment into context from a global perspective. But he’s not forgotten about the current tyre situation and is hopeful a solution can be found. “We still had fun behind the wheel. We still had a good time here with the fans and had a great welcome,” Ogier said.

“At the end, of course, it's not the result I wanted to have here. But if I talk about emotion this week, we're just talking about losing a sport result, which is definitely nothing in life. I was pretty shocked, I guess all of us are, with what we've seen in Nepal this week. Some people lost much more than the rally this week. They lost their lives, they lost everything they have.

“Unfortunately, we were pretty right with the madness that we expected to happen on Friday. I don’t want to repeat it again, but you know what the situation is. Nobody is happy about it and me being the first one. There was a lot of things also happening during the rally with the FIA president [Mohammed Ben Sulayem] being here, and the new promoter, and other people. I think everybody also realised that in this moment, so let's hope that we all work together to find a solution to this problem.”

Ogier issued a public apology to FIA president Mohammed Ben Sulayem and Paraguay president Santiago Pena after the rally for an "out of line interaction” during the weekend where his frustrations got the better of him.

When asked to explain the tyre failures, Hankook’s Steven Cho said on Friday: “What we saw in the morning was much more wear than we expected, much more than last year. When you see lots of wear, it means that it's very abrasive and very rough. Today's loops were really long so with the temperature being hotter than it was last year, the way that the stages looked with the really compacted clay and the bedrock coming through. It was very hard for the tyre. Ourselves and the drivers and teams found the aggressiveness of the roads to be more than I think anybody expected.

“I understand the drivers' frustrations. We do still feel that on the broad spectrum, we've made a step forward with the current specification. But clearly, what we're finding now is that in certain specific conditions, we're still challenged. We're open-minded to hear everyone's opinion and comment, and we'll make the best decision that we can going forward as much as possible.”

Punctures and engine issues derailed Solberg's charge

Photo by: Toyota Racing

Oger wasn’t the only one frustrated by tyre failures. In the same test where Ogier was forced to pull over, early leader Solberg, Hyundai's Adrien Fourmaux and M-Sport duo Jon Armstrong and Josh McErlean joined an ever-growing list of those that encountered tyre issues.

What could have been for Solberg

Solberg, who was an honorary Paraguayan last weekend given the huge support he received from the swathes of passionate local rally fans, saw his victory hopes severely dented in stage three. A sudden loss of engine power caused by a faulty starter motor prompted an overshoot into a ditch which then required rallying cry of 'push, push' to spectators to bump start the car. A second stoppage followed due to a right-rear puncture which meant four minutes were lost in the stage.

After such a promising start it was easy to understand why this rally will go down as a what could have been for the Swede, whose subsequent prayers for Niagara Falls level of rain to recover the lost ground went unanswered. As the anticipated rain skirted by the stages on Saturday and Sunday, Solberg could only recover back to fifth but left Paraguay with a haul of 19 points after claiming nine of the maximum 10 Super Sunday points.

"We didn't play the right lottery numbers on the tyres. That's where the biggest difference was made between the top three" Elfyn Evans

“I feel very unlucky after Friday, because there was nothing I could do. I was okay in the car, but I couldn’t get the car started, I stood there like an idiot in the junction there, nothing was happening. A lot of people said I went off, but I was just parked in the middle of the road. It was a failed starter motor from all the roughness. It was just a shame because I lost a lot of time,” said Solberg.

Evans left to rue delamination and conservative approach amid Fourmaux recovery 

The championship leader headed into Paraguay with a 30-point lead over Pajari, which has now been reduced to 20 points. Like many of his rivals the Welshman has a ‘what could have been story.’

Evans ventured into stage seven leading the rally but that was short-lived thanks to a right-rear delaminated tyre. While it was the right call to press on rather than stop to change it, a minute was lost, and the Toyota driver dropped to third but was unable to fend off a charging Fourmaux who managed to take a minute from Evans across Saturday and Sunday to eventually push him to fourth. Evans managed to claim three Super Sunday points that could prove crucial come the end of the season, but the frustration of losing points was clear to see.

“It's obviously not an ideal weekend. It was a good start on Friday. But of course we didn't play the right lottery numbers on the tyres there. Obviously that's where the biggest difference was made between the top three at least,” said Evans. 

Evans had his championship lead slashed to 20 points

Photo by: Toyota Racing

“And of course for us, we missed some pace to fight with Adrien. He was really strong throughout the weekend. So of course I'm disappointed at the moment. We were too conservative yesterday. I think after all the drama Friday, with so many tyres failing. We obviously thought a more conservative approach was better for trying to not get a puncture again. It looks like the conditions were not as extreme as expected on Saturday.”

When it comes to the driver of the rally, Fourmaux was a clear contender. Again, had the Frenchman avoided three tyre failures on Friday this could so easily have yielded the maiden WRC win he has craved so much. Nobody claimed more stage wins than Fourmaux, who racked up nine fastest times, including five across nine Saturday stages.

“It's been an incredible weekend. I think we deserved to win, but to be 1m50s from the lead on Friday night and going back to less than 50s, it's just unbelievable. What a weekend. It is a shame for the tyres, but at the same time it was a very, very good fight for us to come back and really push,” said Fourmaux.

Paddon pounces to prove doubters wrong 

If this was Paddon’s final top tier WRC start, then he ended a career in spectacular fashion. The New Zealander made the most of his first event in the i20 Rally1 on gravel, emerging with the rally lead on Friday, before going on to finish second. The podium was Paddon's second of his four-round programme after inheriting third following Neuville's final stage crash in Croatia.

“This one feels like a proper podium. It feels like a win to be fair,” an emotional Paddon said. “I think a lot of people had written us off, a lot of people probably thought we were a bit of a joke of signing this year. But a lot of people believed in me, and we believed in ourselves. So this goes to show you never ever give up. Dream, dare to believe in your dream. It is good for myself just to know that we can still be competitive, knowing there's a lot more as well as we learn the car. 

“We don't know what's next, but this has been one hell of a journey. We've gone around in full circles, I don't know how many times, but this is a pretty special one.”

McElean got his M-Sport Ford home with a makeshift gear lever fix

Photo by: M-Sport

McErlean’s “bush fix” rewarded with equal best ever WRC finish

McErlean led the M-Sport-Ford charge but it was quick thinking to repair a snapped gear lever on the final day that delivered a career-equalling sixth.   

“Basically on the long second stage this morning and one kilometre in the gear linkage broke and the gear stick was in my hand so I had to think very fast and pull the gears from the rod coming out of the gearbox. We managed to do that for the full stage and it was not so bad as we actually only lost 25 seconds to Jon [Armstrong] over a 25km stage," said McErlean. “After that we tried to make a bush fix, basically pinning a spanner through the gear stick and jubilee clipping it to the rod. We didn’t know how it was going to last but it was on the limit in the last stage. It was a good fix.”

For team-mate Armstrong it proved to be a frustrating weekend. After fighting back up to seventh after incurring more a 2m20s penalty for being late out of service due to repairs after a high-speed spin caused by a loss of brakes inflicted damage to his Ford Puma, the Northern Irishman then clipped a bank on Sunday that resulted in terminal rear suspension damage.      

“Three stages from the end, we came to a section that changed surface slightly. We didn’t have quite as much grip as we were expecting, so we went a bit wide, touched a bank and broke the rear suspension. So it’s really frustrating not to get a result,” said Armstrong.   

Armstrong left Paraguay frustrated after fighting back from a penalty

Photo by: M-Sport