A dramatic morning at Rally del Paraguay saw Hayden Paddon take the lead after Oliver Solberg lost almost four minutes to engine trouble and a puncture on SS3.
The chaos continued as Sebastien Ogier retired with suspension damage, while Adrien Fourmaux and Jon Armstrong also dropped significant time due to tire issues on the longest stage.
Solberg’s Toyota needed a push start before the 21-mile Yerbateras test. He then stalled under braking for a chicane and required spectator assistance to get going again.
“Push! Push!” shouted Solberg. He explained, “The engine stopped on the braking, and obviously that becomes an overshoot because you have no engine [braking]. Then I couldn’t get it started, so I had to wait for some people to push. Then all of a sudden on the straight line there was a slow puncture.”
Fourmaux looked set to benefit until he suffered a delamination mid-stage. A quick wheel change minimized the loss to under two minutes, but the Hyundai driver dropped to sixth overall.
Instead, Paddon inherited the lead despite ruing his tire choice. The Hyundais were the only Rally1 cars to take hard tires for the morning loop, and Paddon was unhappy with the resulting balance. “How’s that happened?” said the Kiwi when told he led. “It’s just really, really hard conditions for everyone. Apologies to my nana, but my nana can drive better than that. We changed the tires; it didn’t work, I didn’t like the hard tire at all.”
Paddon holds a 22.7s advantage over Josh McErlean, who lost time on SS3 and suffered a puncture. Elfyn Evans is third, 17.2s behind, after also experiencing a delamination. “It’s going to be a tough afternoon surviving,” said the Welshman.
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Takamoto Katsuta mundur dari Rally Paraguay setelah crash di SS1. Drama puncture menimpa Ogier dan Neuville, sementara Oliver Solberg memimpin.
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