{"id":871982,"date":"2026-08-28T23:02:18","date_gmt":"2026-08-28T23:02:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/871982\/"},"modified":"2026-08-28T23:02:18","modified_gmt":"2026-08-28T23:02:18","slug":"wrc-paraguay-sami-pajari-leads-after-tyre-failures-reshape-order","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/871982\/","title":{"rendered":"WRC Paraguay: Sami Pajari leads after tyre failures reshape order"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sami Pajari<\/a> claimed the Rally Paraguay lead after emerging from a punishing opening day headlined by a series of punctures and crashes that shook up the World Rally Championship leaderboard.<\/p>\n

Pajari and co-driver Marko Salminen, chasing a third WRC win after wins in Estonia and Finland, started the afternoon loop fourth overall and 33.2s from the lead. The Finnish pairing were delayed by a water leak on their GR Yaris in the morning, but ended the day as the only Rally1 crew to avoid the tyre problems that plagued Friday\u2019s gravel stages.<\/p>\n

Pajari capitalised on punctures and delaminations for Elfyn Evans<\/a> and Hayden Paddon<\/a> to vault into the lead, ending the day with an 11.9s advantage over\u00a0Paddon. Championship leader Evans salvaged third, 56.3s in arrears.<\/p>\n

“After all the crazy things we are quite well in the standings but it is only Friday done. I think the days to come are the most demanding days. For the moment we are quite ok,\u201d said Pajari.<\/p>\n

\"Hayden <\/p>\n

Hayden Paddon, John Kennard, Hyundai World Rally Team Hyundai i20 N Rally1<\/p>\n

Photo by: Hyundai Motorsport<\/p>\n

Paddon had emerged with a surprise rally lead at midday on his Rally1 gravel debut for Hyundai. It was the first time Paddon had led a rally since Portugal 2018.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The New Zealander took advantage of a hectic morning loop that witnessed retirements for team-mate Thierry Neuville<\/a> (puncture, broken suspension), reigning world champion S\u00e9bastien Ogier<\/a> (two punctures, broken suspension) and Takamoto Katsuta<\/a>\u00a0(roll).\u00a0<\/p>\n

Paddon\u2019s trouble arrived on stage six (Nueva Alborada 2) as the Kiwi suffered a front-right tyre delamination. The delay was enough to hand Evans the rally lead by the slender margin of 0.5s.<\/p>\n

But Evans\u2019 time in the lead was short-lived as the second run through the rally\u2019s longest test, 33.88km Yerbatera, brought another wave of tyre issues. Evans\u2019 right-rear tyre began delaminating and eventually disintegrated completely, forcing the Welshman to nurse his GR Yaris Rally1 to the finish on the rim. Evans dropped from the lead to third.<\/p>\n

Pajari, meanwhile, completed the stage without drama and was fastest by 0.1s from Toyota team-mate Oliver Solberg. Paddon also reached the finish with a delaminated left-rear tyre, dropping 20.8sec to Pajari, but did enough to retain second place.<\/p>\n

Pajari carried a 12.4s advantage into the evening\u2019s short Aut\u00f3dromo Alfredo Scheid super special to close out Friday 11.9s ahead of Paddon.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think everyone\u2019s had problems, so if we can drive out of two stages on punctures and still be within touching distance, we\u2019ve been unlucky but lucky at the same time,\u201d said\u00a0Paddon.<\/p>\n

\u201cTough day, and the scary thing is I think this is going to be the easiest day of the rally.\u201d<\/p>\n

Evans held third, 44.4s behind Paddon, having remarkably suffered tyre delaminations on both passes of Yerbatera.<\/p>\n

\"Hayden <\/p>\n

Hayden Paddon, John Kennard, Hyundai World Rally Team Hyundai i20 N Rally1<\/p>\n

Photo by: Hyundai Motorsport<\/p>\n

Adrien Fourmaux<\/a> completed the day in fourth, 1min51.3s from the lead, but cut a frustrated figure after suffering a double rear puncture in stage seven – the same test where Paddon and Evans also suffered tyre delaminations. The Frenchman nevertheless won four of Friday\u2019s eight stages.<\/p>\n

Josh McErlean completed the top five having run as high as second at midday. The Irishman was only 9.8s from the lead after stage six before stopping to change a wheel on Yerbatera and dropping more than two minutes.<\/p>\n

Home favourite Diego Dom\u00ednguez ended Friday sixth overall and led WRC2 by 39.4s from Gus Greensmith, who sits seventh.<\/p>\n

Solberg reached service in eighth, 3m33.3sec from the lead, after his promising start unraveled on the first Yerbatera pass when his engine stalled under braking and wouldn\u2019t restart. Spectators eventually push-started his Toyota before a subsequent puncture added further delay.<\/p>\n

Heavy rain is anticipated for Saturday\u2019s leg, which brings another 137.34km across nine stages.<\/p>\n

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– The Motorsport.com Team<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sami Pajari claimed the Rally Paraguay lead after emerging from a punishing opening day headlined by a series…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":871983,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,806,805,803,804,7104,74782,402827,85,32478,10277,440554],"class_list":["post-871982","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-motosport","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-motor","tag-motor-sports","tag-motosport","tag-motosports","tag-paraguay","tag-rally-del-paraguay","tag-sami-pajari","tag-sports","tag-toyota-racing","tag-wrc","tag-wrc-paraguay-sami-pajari-leads-after-tyre-failures-reshape-order"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/871982","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=871982"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/871982\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/871983"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=871982"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=871982"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=871982"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}