What Paraguay Added to the WRC Record

The WRC has spent years looking for roads that feel genuinely different. Paraguay supplied the answer through red gravel, heat, fast changes of grip and a route that had to become part of the championship’s memory in real time.

Round 11 of the 2026 championship ran from 27 to 30 August in the Itapúa region. Sami Pajari and Marko Salminen won the inaugural ueno Rally del Paraguay, while the event also delivered a home WRC2 victory for Diego Domínguez and another WRC3 podium for India’s Naveen Pulligilla and Musa Sherif.

A new rally earned its place one corner at a time

New events are not judged only by scenery. They have to deliver safe stage operations, reliable timing, strong spectator control and a route that challenges the cars without becoming a lottery. Paraguay’s first WRC edition made those questions visible, then answered them through a full weekend of competition.

The first pass carried an extra burden for every crew. There was no old notebook to consult and no familiar reference from a previous generation of cars. The pace notes had to describe a road that was still becoming part of the championship’s shared memory, making the relationship between driver and navigator especially important.

The result became larger than the debut

Pajari’s hat-trick, Domínguez’s home victory and the Indian WRC3 podium gave the event several different centres of gravity. The final report carries the classification. The photographs carry the texture: dust on the road, water across the line and a field learning exactly how much the surface would give back.

The event also showed why a rally result cannot be separated from its safety decisions. Artigas 2, SS21, was cancelled after Takamoto Katsuta’s accident, and the final classification was formed after the organisers, officials and medical response had made the responsible choice.

Paraguay now moves from experiment to reference. Future crews will arrive with a little more knowledge, though the road will continue to change underneath them. That is the gift of a new rally. It begins as an unknown and ends as a memory that the next championship calculation has to respect.

The first notebook begins on Thursday

A new WRC round creates a rare kind of equality. Every crew arrives with experience of rallying, yet nobody has a trusted history for the exact roads ahead. The first reconnaissance pass becomes an act of discovery. Drivers look for braking references, changes in camber and the places where the red gravel will move under the car. Co-drivers turn those observations into a language that has to work at speed.

Itapúa brings visual drama, though the real test will be the rhythm of the stages. Fast sections reward commitment, while changing grip asks the crew to judge how much of the road can be used. A clean line in one section can become a loose, polished surface a few corners later. The best preparation will come from listening to the road as its character reveals itself.

The organisers also have the responsibility of making a new event feel established from its first running. Spectator areas, marshals, medical response, timing and service operations all need to work together. The rally earns its future through those details, because a championship round has to be memorable for the quality of its competition and its care for the people around it.

Paraguay’s arrival gives the 2026 championship another texture and gives its crews a fresh question. How quickly can a team turn an unfamiliar road into a place where it can attack with confidence? The answer will be written across four days of dust, notes and careful decisions.

The public side of the rally will matter just as much. A new round creates interest in the host region, yet it also asks spectators to understand where they can stand, how they can move and why the stage has to be treated with respect. The strongest events make safety part of the welcome.

For the crews, Paraguay is a rare blank page. The first winner will carry the memory of having helped define the event, while every team will leave with a notebook that future competitors can only wish they had. That is how a new rally begins to build tradition.