At 8:00 a.m., the dream of years officially became a reality with the departure of Elfyn Evans on the 18.7-kilometer Cambyretá stage to set the benchmark that would end up being beaten by his competitors, relegating him to fifth place overall. An ambitious Kalle Rovanperä would be the one to set the scratch time by 3.2 seconds over eight-time world champion Sébastien Ogier. Both with Toyota.
A slip by the two-time world champion, and the youngest in history, on his first foray into Nueva Alborada, would end up costing him the difference against Frenchman Adrien Fourmaux (Hyundai), to the point of being separated by only 4 tenths of a second. The third special stage in Yerbateras, considered “the most violent” of the rally, with its 30 kilometers, would end up passing the lead to Fourmaux, even though Ogier was the one who set the best time.
To cap off a good first half of the day, Fourmaux had the luxury of scoring the scratch at the Capitán Miranda Autodrome, arriving at the service park 4.1 seconds ahead of Kalle Rovanperä and 18 seconds ahead of fellow Finnish Toyota driver Sami Pajari.
The second leg of the stages saw the almost unchallenged dominance of Sébastien Ogier, who set the best times in the repeats of Cambyreta, Yerbateras, and Autódromo, with only the Nueva Alborada stage going to Estonian Ott Tänak. Rovanperä unexpectedly regained the lead after Fourmaux suffered a puncture on the repeat of Yerbateras (SS7), relegating the Frenchman to second place, with his teammate Ott Tanak completing the podium.
Among the Rally2 cars, Yohan Rossel was the best at the end of the day with the Citroën C3, followed by Russian (under Bulgarian license) Nikolai Gryazin, while none other than Diego Domínguez Bejarano closed out the podium in both WRC2 and WRC2 Challenger. The WRC3 world champion, who chose the Rally Paraguay for his program in the RC2 class support championships, scored no less than three scratches in Yerbatera and the two passes at the Autodrome.
For the Rally3 Group cars, the podium is made up of Italian Matteo Fontana, followed by Frenchman Ghjuvanni Rossi, leaving the last step of the provisional stage podium for Peruvian Eduardo Castro.
