Sebastien Ogier: Paraguay victory fight “not over” after stunning WRC fightback

The eight-time world champion is wary Rally Paraguay could serve up a final-day twist

Rally Paraguay leader Sebastien Ogier says the fight for victory is “not over” and “many things can still happen” following a stunning fight back from eighth.

The eight-time world champion has so far endured an eventful maiden visit to Paraguay, beginning with a puncture on Friday’s second stage that cost the Toyotas more than half a minute.

After dropping to eighth, Ogier reeled off eight stage wins from the following 13 tests to rocket from eighth into a 10.3s lead over Hyundai’s Adrien Fourmaux heading into Sunday’s final four stages. The run included a bold gamble to carry only one spare wheel across Saturday afternoon.

Fourmaux not giving up on fight for maiden win

Adrien Fourmaux, Alexandre Coria, Hyundai World Rally Team Hyundai i20 N Rally1

Photo by: Austral / Hyundai Motorsport

Ogier’s newest rival Fourmaux is refusing to give up on the prospect of scoring a maiden WRC win in Paraguay.

The Frenchman led the rally until stage seven when he surrendered the lead to Rovanpera after picking up a pair of punctures in consecutive stages.

“To be fair, I’m quite happy how we managed the afternoon. I was quite conservative in some places and I was not taking risks with punctures, so we lost time in some places,” said Fourmaux, who battled a damper issue on Saturday afternoon.

“It is a compromise now between pushing and playing with luck and trying to do your best to get a good result without any trouble.

“I already had two punctures yesterday [Friday], so I really wanted to avoid it today. I think we have some issues with the car as it was behaving differently from yesterday, so we need to analyse. At the same we can be happy as we are still second.

“We need to catch 2.5s on Seb on every stage, it is a challenge but let’s see if it is possible.

“There are long stages and we will see if the rain comes. For us, we have to push and maybe Seb will have a puncture or a mistake, and 10 seconds is then nothing, but at the same time it can also be big.”