At Rally Paraguay, the eleventh round of the FIA World Rally Championship season, Lancia Corse HF officially locked down the WRC2 Team Championship. What makes this triumph delightfully absurd is that Lancia achieved global dominance in the very first year of its official comeback, transforming its brand-new Ypsilon Rally2 HF Integrale into a championship-winning weapon with three whole races left on the calendar.
The victory did not come from a dramatic, champagne-soaked sweep of the podium. Instead, it was forged through more than 358 kilometers of brutal, rut-filled gravel across the Itapúa region, where the roads disintegrated faster than cheap espresso and dust clouds completely choked out visibility. Changing weather conditions made setup choices a constant gamble, while the local terrain developed a vicious appetite for tire tread.
Yohan Rossel and co-driver Arnaud Dunand lost crucial time early on due to tire mishaps, while teammates Nikolay Gryazin and Konstantin Aleksandrov wrestled with similar rubber-shredding drama. Yet, Gryazin’s fifth-place finish and Rossel’s sixth-place survival act yielded just enough points to seal the team championship for good.
For the Ypsilon Rally2 HF Integrale, this dust-caked endurance test served as a decisive validation of its engineering. Restarting a legendary motorsport program from scratch in today’s ultra-competitive landscape is no small task, especially when trying to prove the brand isn’t simply trading on 1980s nostalgia. Throughout the season, the team has subjected the car to asphalt, mud, and high-speed gravel, gathering vital development data while simultaneously fighting for points.
Team Principal Didier Clément pointed out that relentless punctures prevented a higher finish on the leaderboards despite the car’s undeniable pace. Still, holding the team title before even setting foot in Chile gives Lancia Corse HF a rare luxury: driving completely unburdened by math.
With the big hardware already locked in the trophy case, the team can spend the rest of the season chasing individual driver titles and refining the Ypsilon without the existential dread of a late-season collapse.
