The Hyundai driver had made a strong start to the second day, climbing into second place after the morning’s opening stage. But on the very next test, the Estonian star was dealt a heavy blow.
Tänak’s car suffered a puncture around the halfway point of the stage. He chose to continue without changing the tyre, but the time loss was significant.
By the finish, Tänak had dropped more than half a minute to the stage winner and slipped to sixth overall. He reached midday service still in sixth place, almost 50 seconds adrift of rally leader Kalle Rovanperä.
“On one unfortunate stage obviously we picked up a puncture and had to do quite a long distance. So we lost a lot of time there,” Tänak explained.
“And after that, obviously without a spare, we still wanted to come back here (to service),” he added.
The setback forced Tänak to reset his approach. Instead of fighting Rovanperä for the win, his battle turned into one for fourth place against Toyota’s Elfyn Evans and Hyundai team-mate Thierry Neuville. Tänak sits 8.3 seconds behind Evans in fourth, while the gap to Neuville is 3.7 seconds.
“We hope we can manage still with Elfyn and Thierry. So at least we’ll put some pressure on and minimum to stay close, because tomorrow is also a long day,” Tänak said.
“So let’s see how this afternoon works out. And hopefully we still can find some pace.”
Rally Paraguay continues on Saturday with three more stages.
