How Ogier’s stunning Paraguay fightback outlined his WRC title desires

“How unlucky can you be – only one to have this heavy rain. That’s the way it goes. But anyway, we’ll keep winning and winning this championship.”

Shots fired. The above was all a frustrated Sebastien Ogier had to say after crossing the finish line to claim a stunning comeback from puncture adversity to win the World Rally Championship’s inaugural round in Paraguay.

The victory interview was short. There were no celebrations, no jumping on the roof of his Toyota GR Yaris to celebrate with co-driver Vincent Landais. It was an unusual reaction to a 65th career win that has to rank among his best. But it spoke volumes. 

This wasn’t arrogance, it was simply Ogier’s ultra competitive side coming out. The eight-time world champion was thrown a final stage curveball as heavy rain arrived for his pass through challenging Misión Jesuítica Trinidad stage. Luckily he had built up a 39.1s lead before the heavens opened, meaning the victory was safe as long as he didn’t fall off the slippery gravel road. But the prospect of scoring 10 Super Sunday Points to take the championship lead was ultimately reduced to just one, leaving Ogier nine points adrift of long-time points leader and Toyota team-mate Elfyn Evans. 

This initial angry reaction after victory is confirmation Ogier really desires what would be an astonishing record-equalling ninth world title from a partial season. After scoring four wins from seven starts and a 100% podium record, Ogier is fast becoming the title favourite and his rivals Evans, Kalle Rovanpera and Ott Tanak know it. Once the initial frustration of being hit by an unfortunate sudden rain shower subsided, Ogier was indeed proud of his performance and so he should be. 

“Most of the time I manage to be fast on new events, but I had a little bit of bad luck often in South America and after stage two [puncture] on Friday I said no not again,” said Ogier.

“The speed was good and the feeling was good but that was a bad hit straight away, but we never gave up and pushed all weekend and I managed to secure this win so we can be quite proud about the performance.”

This was an incredible performance on many levels. Paraguay was labelled as the ultimate playing field leveller as the South American nation made a successful debut. None of the Rally1 teams and crews had any experience of its unique stages that for the most part on paper looked relatively straight-forward in their make up. In reality they were anything but as crews faced multiple grip changes, a clay-like surface that turned to ice in the rain, loose rocks and rough kicker jumps waiting to throw the car off line in the blink of an eye. Whoever adapted to the conditions the fastest would ultimately be rewarded.

Ogier was fast out of the blocks surviving an opening stage he labelled as “wake up call” given its multiple kicker jumps that tested the backs of the crews and the strength of the cars. It seemed Ogier’s misfortune in South America had struck again having missed out in wins when the WRC visited Argentina and Chile during his career. A rear right puncture in stage two cost Ogier 37 seconds and at the time it seemed his victory hopes were over before the rally had barely begun.

But Ogier has always been a fighter and a driver that never gives up. This was evident on the next stage where he threw caution to the wind without a spare wheel and ended up winning.

By the end of Friday, the Toyota driver had hauled himself from eighth to fourth, 17.8s behind leader Rovanpera, after overhauling Evans and Hyundai’s Thierry Neuville, who were both struggling to unlock grip from their cars on Paraguay’s unique polished gravel roads.

The fightback was on and yet another clear sign that Ogier has the title locked in his sights.   

“There’s not much more we can lose now. When you are at the back of the field, you need to go for some risks anyway,” he said.

By the end of Friday, the Toyota driver had hauled himself from eighth to fourth, 17.8s behind leader Rovanpera, after overhauling Evans and Hyundai’s Thierry Neuville, who were both struggling to unlock grip from their cars on Paraguay’s unique polished gravel roads. Ogier was also able to leapfrog M-Sport’s Josh McErlean and Sami Pajari, who unfortunately surrendered a fine third to a puncture.

There was no doubting Ogier’s pace. The Frenchman was clearly the fastest on Paraguay’s roads and pressed home that advantage on Saturday winning four of the seven tests. This included yet another gamble as Ogier was the only driver to take one spare wheel instead of two for the afternoon loop. 

A daring gamble saw Ogier overhaul rivals following his early misfortune

Photo by: Toyota Racing

Ogier had already managed to climb to second by stage 14 reducing Rovanpera’s lead to 14.4s. The ascent to the top of the leaderboard was completed after the test as Rovanpera picked up a front right picture mid-stage and wrongly expect against stopping to change the week. Two minutes were dropped handing Ogier a 10.3s lead over Hyundai’s Adrien Fourmaux at the end of Saturday. But Ogier knew the game was not over as crews had been fearing the prospect of rain arriving on Sunday, comprising a significant which would turn Paraguay’s clay-like road surface to ice. 

“It is a pretty good one [fightback] but it is not over,” he said. “Tomorrow [Sunday] is the longest loop of the weekend and rain is maybe forecasted, and many things can still happen. There is still a lot to do and the weather could really mix up everything.”

Ogler’s words were prophetic as the rain did arrive and could have a bearing on whether he lands a ninth world title come the end of the season. After surviving treacherous conditions in stage 16, the rain returned for the Power Stage with the heaviest downpour seemingly reserved for Ogier’s pass through the test that prompted the unusual victory reaction explained above. 

“Of course in the moment it is frustrating as you are close to a perfect weekend and on our side we give everything we can and don’t get rewarded so I needed a bit of times,” said Ogier, who took the win by 26.2s from Evans with Hyundai’s Neuville snatching third.

“The most important thing is we win the rally and we have been clearly the fastest of the weekend and that is very positive for the mission we have now for the rest of the season.”

The loss of Power Stage points aside, this was a statement win from Ogier, who is arguably delivering his very best still at the age of 41 which is further highlighted by his metrics for 2025. Seven podiums from seven starts, including four wins, equates to an astonishing average of 27 points per round. It’s a remarkable run that doesn’t appear to be showing any signs of slowing down.

Winning a drivers’ title wasn’t Ogier’s target for the year, but it appears matching the WRC’s most successful driver in nine-time champion Sebastien Loeb is fast becoming increasingly likely as the season reaches its final four rounds. 

Ogier has put the pressure on Evans to hold on for a first WRC title

Photo by: Toyota Racing

Now nine points adrift of the championship lead, the pressure is most certainly on Evans, Rovanpera and Tanak. 

How the title contenders compare

*Ogier has contested only seven of the 10 rounds to date 

Consistent Evans lucky to keep points lead 

Consistency is key to winning championships, but even points leader Evans admitted he was lucky to leave Paraguay at the top of the standings.

Evans and Ogier are the only two drivers to finish every rally they’ve contested this year inside the top six. The big difference is Evans has scored two fewer wins and has finished off the podium in five rounds. Last weekend was Evans’ first visit to the podium since the Canary Islands in April.

However, Evans has faced the disadvantage of opening the road in eight of 10 rounds this year. 

“We’ve definitely been lucky” Elfyn Evans

A podium seemed again unlikely in Paraguay as the Welshman was clearly frustrated at not being able to unlock speed from his GR Yaris in low grip conditions. There were improvements as the weekend progressed, but the pace to challenge for victory never arrived.

Where Evans has excelled this year is by hanging in there when the going gets tough. There was a brief run off the road in when the rain hit in stage 16, but it has to be said he has been largely mistake free this season, which is crucial for winning titles.  

The rain did, however, offer Evans the chance to snatch second at the death as Fourmaux was hampered by the tricky conditions and slipped from second to fourth. Hyundai then opted to retire Fourmaux after the finish for tactical reasons tat prompted Tanak to fourth and Rovanpera to fifth. 

Evans initially stood to increase his championship lead from three to nine points before Hyundai’s call, but now the margin over Rovanpera stands at seven.

Evans conceded he was “lucky” in Paraguay but still picked up second to keep the championship lead

Photo by: Toyota Racing

“We’ve definitely been lucky,” said Evans. “In comparison to Seb, let’s say he’s definitely been dealt a short hand. We got caught out a little bit ourselves and that obviously meant that we couldn’t challenge the other guys. We just about managed to hang on in front of Thierry, so yeah, it was all right in the end.

“Obviously the weekend was not what we wanted, but obviously just being there at the end gave us a result.”

Rovanpera and Tanak lose ground in title fight 

Had Rovanpera avoided a puncture on Saturday, it is fair to say the Finn would be leading the championship. 

While he had the pace to lead the rally, Rovanpera, like Evans, wasn’t happy as his struggles for pace on the Hankook tyres continued, but crucially he remains firmly in the title hunt. 

“I’m not extracting the best I can from the car. It’s never the best feeling, obviously, “said Rovnapera

Rovanpera has been struggling to extract the maximum from his Toyota

Photo by: Toyota Racing

“Obviously we should have stopped and changed the tyre, [co-driver] Jonne [Halttunen] was saying we should go to the end. I didn’t know how long to the end so [it was] clearly wrong decision this time.

“We were still well in the fight, and we had some good pace also. But yeah, just the puncture yesterday and after that we did what we could to get some Sunday points. At the end, the weather helped us a bit, and we got some good points. I cannot be too disappointed.”

Fellow title rival Tanak also endured a frustrating weekend and is now further away from the championship lead. Having started the weekend 13 points adrift of Evans, a myriad of misfortune left them 18 points shy by the end of it.

 “It [the car] is far too fragile” Ott Tanak

Tanak had managed to fight back from a slow start to challenge for the victory, sitting 8.7s behind leader Rovanpera before trouble struck when a puncture dropped him down the order on Saturday. 

Having worked his way back to podium fight on Sunday a second puncture hit before ending the rally with a wounded i20 N in fifth, that soon became fourth when Hyundai opted to retire team-mate Fourmaux.

“The front right damper failed just before the end and I couldn’t carry the speed anymore. That is exactly the weekend it has been like. It [the car] is far too fragile,” said Tanak at the finish. 

Solberg on course for WRC2 title after stunning fightback

Solberg looks set to clinch the WRC2 title after a stunning comeback win

Photo by: Red Bull Content Pool

Paraguay was a rally of two successful fightbacks as Oliver Solberg mirrored Ogier by coming back from puncture adversity to claim victory.

Solberg was a 1m13s adrift of the class lead in 10th after suffering a puncture in stage three. The Swede, co-driven by Elliott Edmondson, rattled off 15 stage wins from a possible 19, and was assisted when rivals hit trouble, to take a fourth WRC2 win of the year.

Solberg, who scored a sensational outright WRC win in Estonia on debut for Toyota in July, now has a chance to seal the WRC2 title in Chile next week.

“People were asking me: how good is this win? Honestly, to make a minute back – like we did in Sardinia earlier this year – is special. This can’t be better than winning in Estonia, but maybe it’s equal to that result,” said Solberg.

“We needed this result. Dropping points in Finland was really frustrating and we knew we had to get this championship back on track with a win and big points here in Paraguay. 

“I’m really proud of the way we did that. Punctures are part of the game and they hurt you when they come – but for us to bounce back like we did was really cool.”

Solberg has continued his form after an incredible WRC outright win in July

Photo by: Red Bull Content Pool