Oliver Solberg holds a slender three-point advantage as the WRC2 series enters its business end, but the battle for championship honours remains wide open.
The Swede tops the standings with 85 points ahead of the FIA World Rally Championship's 10th round, but his Finland retirement effectively handed a lifeline to consistent Frenchman Yohan Rossel, who sits on 82 points in his Citroën C3 Rally2.
With five rallies remaining - and all the major title contenders confirmed for Paraguay's WRC debut - the championship battle is heating up.
Standings after Secto Rally Finland
Solberg has banked three wins this season – in Sweden, Portugal and Greece – but his Friday crash in Finland means he's used up his dropped score under WRC2's best-six-from-seven system. Any further setbacks will count toward his championship total.
Rossel has taken a different approach, winning in Monte Carlo and the Canary Islands whilst also bagging podiums in Portugal and Greece, but the Frenchman also has a zero-score to his name owing to a broken steering arm in Italy. Like Solberg, he's effectively used his dropped score.
Behind them, Finland winner Roope Korhonen has climbed to third with 69 points from five starts, with Gus Greensmith fourth on 57 points despite having contested just three point-scoring events – all on gravel – so far this season.
The wildcard is Nikolay Gryazin, who has just 15 points from two starts but can still mathematically win the title. His tactical late-season approach – with the Škoda driver expected to contest all five remaining rounds – could prove decisive.
Title race timeline
Next week's ueno Rally del Paraguay will be WRC's first visit to the South American nation, meaning none of the contenders have a data advantage. Crucially, several - Solberg, Rossel, Greensmith, Robert Virves, Kajetan Kajetanowicz and Gryazin – have entered the event as a scoring round, setting up a direct showdown between the title hopefuls.
"It's going to be really interesting because nobody knows these roads," said Solberg ahead of the trip to South America. "We're all starting from zero."
The championship won't be decided in Paraguay, however. The earliest mathematical conclusion could come at Rally Chile Bío Bío a fortnight later, although the most likely scenario sees the fight extending to the season's closing rounds.
After Chile's familiar gravel, the championship moves to the technical asphalt challenges of Central European Rally and FORUM8 Rally Japan before closing out on all-new desert stages of Rally Saudi Arabia in November.
With Gryazin's tactical approach adding an unpredictable element to the run-in, this year's WRC2 title fight looks like it could go down to the wire.
-----This news comes from https:/www,wrc.com/en/news/ and is NOT for commercial purposes