Kalle Rovanperä and Jonne Halttunen took the lead of the inaugural Rally del Paraguay in stage seven after Adrien Fourmaux and Alex Coria, the rally leaders by 5.5 seconds after stage six, picked up a puncture and lost 19 seconds after the tyre delaminated and minced the right front fender of the Hyundai i20N.
The Hyundai driver held a 4.1sec advantage over Kalle Rovanperä at the mid-point of Friday’s opening leg, having won two of the four stages on Paraguay’s punishing gravel roads.
Rovanperä won the opening stage and led after SS2 before Fourmaux took a slender lead after the third test, which he held until the fateful stage seven.
Ott Tanak and Martin Jarveoja hold third, half a second behind their teammates while Sebastien Ogier and Vincent Landais also had a puncture as early as stage two and dropped to eighth but spent the rest of the day clawing their way up the order to end in fourth position, some 17.8 seconds off the podium.
Elfyn Evans and Scott Martin were once again in damage limitation mode, opening the road and conceded 21 seconds to the leaders after the opening day.
Thierry Neuville and Martin Wydaeghe had a horrible day, unhappy with the set-up of their Hyundai and ended sixth; he had a high-speed overshoot right at the end of the stage, losing more time.
Josh McErlean and Eoin Treacy held seventh in their M-Sport Ford Puma, some 65 seconds ahead of Sami Pajari and Marko Salminen who continued to impress in third position in the morning loop, 18.0sec back from the lead.
Pajari picked up a puncture 12, 6km into stage seven and dropped over two minutes as he had to stop and change the tyre, plummeting down the ranking to eighth.
Yohan Rossel and Nikolay Gryazin hold first and second in WRC2.
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