WRC2
Virves targets WRC2 Challenger crown in Paraguay
Robert Virves can turn his perfect 2026 scoring record into WRC2 Challenger glory at this week’s ueno Rally del Paraguay, where Lancia Corse HF also has an opportunity to wrap up the teams title.
Virves arrives in South America having taken maximum WRC2 points on each of his four nominated appearances this season, winning in Kenya, Greece, Estonia and Finland to build a commanding position at the head of the outright standings.
The Estonian holds 100 points, 21 clear of Roope Korhonen and 24 ahead of Teemu Suninen, neither of whom will compete in Paraguay. Léo Rossel, fourth on 64 points, is also absent, leaving fifth-placed Alejandro Cachón as Virves’ highest-ranked outright championship rival on the entry list.
There is even more at stake for Virves in WRC2 Challenger. He leads Korhonen by six points in that classification and a fifth victory of the season would guarantee him the title, irrespective of results elsewhere.
The outright WRC2 crown cannot yet be secured, however. Suninen still has enough scoring nominations available to reach a maximum of 134 points, meaning that battle must continue beyond Paraguay even if Virves extends his winning sequence this weekend.
Virves also returns to a rally where he came tantalisingly close to victory 12 months ago. He led WRC2 by 6.5sec heading into the final day after battling Yohan Rossel and Nikolay Gryazin, only for Sunday’s dramatic rain-hit stages to turn the order on its head as Oliver Solberg surged through to win.
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Competition will be fierce again this year.
Cachón sits fifth in the WRC2 standings with 61 points and is joined among the leading championship contenders by Lancia pair Gryazin and Yohan Rossel, sixth and seventh respectively.
Rossel has already taken victories in Croatia and the Canary Islands this season, while Gryazin scored maximum points at FORUM8 Rally Japan. Both also have previous Paraguay experience, having finished second and third respectively behind Solberg last year.
Their performance could have championship implications beyond the drivers’ contest.
Lancia Corse HF can secure the WRC2 Teams’ Championship this weekend despite currently trailing Toksport WRT by 235 points to 195 in the published standings.
Toksport has already completed all seven of its nominated scoring rounds and, with only its best six results counting, can finish with a maximum counted total of 210 points. That means Lancia needs 16 points from Paraguay to move beyond its rival’s reach. Gryazin and Rossel are both nominated to score Teams points for the Italian marque.
Virves, meanwhile, forms part of a huge 25-crew WRC2-eligible field that underlines the strength of Paraguay’s rallying culture.
No fewer than 15 Paraguayan drivers are eligible for WRC2 points, with Fau Zaldivar spearheading the home challenge. Zaldivar already has a podium to his name this season after finishing third in Kenya, while 2024 WRC3 champion Diego Domínguez will be eager to make amends after an oil leak ended his home challenge on Saturday last year.
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Andrea Lafarja, Alejandro Galanti, Gustavo Saba and Augusto Bestard are among the other local names joining the fight, while the international contingent includes Gus Greensmith, Taylor Gill, Romet Jürgenson, Yuki Yamamoto and Bolivia’s Marco Bulacia.
The sheer depth of the field will be matched by the scale of the challenge. At 358.88km across 22 stages, Paraguay is the longest rally of the 2026 WRC season, with more than one third of the competitive route new compared with last year.
Its fast, junction-heavy red-earth roads offer high grip in dry conditions but can become treacherously slippery when rain falls, as the WRC2 contenders discovered to dramatic effect 12 months ago. Friday alone contains 153.38km of action, including two passes over the 33.88km Yerbatera test.
