Toyota Gazoo Racing World Rally Team will be competing on unfamiliar roads in South America this week when the FIA World Rally Championship visits Paraguay for the first time 28-31 August.
The Rally del Paraguay will be the first of two consecutive rounds on South American gravel, with cars set to be transported over the Andes mountains to compete in Rally Chile just two weeks later.
Having completed an intense run of European rallies, including a perfect 1-2-3-4-5 result on home roads at Rally Finland earlier this month, TGR-WRT travel to South America with their full fleet of five GR YARIS Rally1 cars – back in their regular all-black livery after a sporting a lighter silver summer scheme on recent events.
With five rounds remaining in the 2025 season, the team have a lead of 87 points in the manufacturers’ championship, and three drivers leading the way in the title race. Elfyn Evans is back at the top of the drivers’ standings, with Kalle Rovanperä just three points behind after his home win at Rally Finland. Sébastien Ogier is 10 points further back in third, level with Hyundai driver Ott Tänak.
The rally will be based in the south of Paraguay in the city of Encarnación, on the banks of the Paraná river and close to the border with Argentina. The route comprises roads that have previously featured in Rally Trans Itapúa competition but will be a trip into the unknown for the Rally1 teams and drivers. The stages are expected to be generally fast, with some more technical sections through dense forest, while the red earth surface should be smooth but soft – meaning that deep ruts could form for the second pass of stages.
After a ceremonial start on Thursday evening in Encarnación, the rally begins on Friday when 87.6 competitive miles will be driven across two loops of four stages. The loop ends with a super special stage at the Autodromo Alfredo Scheid, which will be run for a third and final time at the end of Saturday morning. Saturday’s route is otherwise formed by a trio of stages to the west each run twice, before Sunday’s finale features a pair of repeated stages to the north-east.
Elfyn said, “After Rally Finland we’re back in the lead of the drivers’ championship, but the pack is incredibly close, so we can expect a big fight to the end of the season.
“We’re heading into another gravel rally, so it might not be easy to defend that lead when we need to open the road, but as usual we’ll be trying our best to get a good result. It’s always a big challenge to prepare for a new rally, and especially when it’s outside of Europe and we’re not able to test there beforehand.
“We’ll need to wait for the recce to really see what the stages and the conditions are like and try to adapt the car to suit that as best as we can.”
