Rally de Portugal began with a strange new normal in the World Rally Championship: drivers running flat-out on hard tyres while saving their softs for a forecast storm, and a new compound generation that is wearing faster than anyone expected over a single abrasive loop.
The Thursday afternoon stage at Coimbra delivered a familiar set of small time gaps but a long list of complaints about tyre life. "That stage was more abrasive than we thought, with the bedrock and then a bit of a tarmac section, and then the rallycross at the end has also tarmac," said Hyundai's Thierry Neuville at the end of the loop. "It seems like it was doing a bit of damage."
Neuville is now openly committed to a strategy that is being whispered up and down service: bank the hards now, save the softs for when the weather changes. "We've taken all hards for this loop just to try and save our softs for when the weather changes," he said. "So we're trying to think ahead." The Belgian sat seventh fastest after the opening test, 2.7 seconds back, and admitted to a half-spin at the final hairpin in which a moment of differential slip felt like a broken driveshaft.
Elfyn Evans, first on the road and obliged to sweep, was honest about how the conditions felt. "Pretty good. Time looks pretty good, but the feeling, like Elfyn says, it doesn't feel so great. It doesn't feel like we're going forward," his co-driver Scott Martin said at stage end. The Toyota crew face two days of clearing for everyone behind them, and have, only half-jokingly, taken to wishing for rain. "I'm just going to do the rain dance tonight and hope a little bit comes while we're in bed," Martin added. "That would soften the blow a bit tomorrow."
Reigning champion Sebastien Ogier was even more cautious. The Frenchman ended the opener fifth quickest, around five seconds off the lead, and was reported by paddock observers to be "unhappy" with the balance of the car. "The balance wasn't there," was the message coming back to the team, with no service available before Saturday morning's running. "Anything that needs doing has to be done by the crews themselves," the DirtFish broadcast noted.
The brightest mood in the service park belonged to the chasers. M-Sport's Adrien Fourmaux, returning to gravel for the first time in a while, was openly bullish. "On gravel, I told you that we know that we are performing," Fourmaux said. "So now it's about driving." Asked if he could win in Portugal, the Frenchman barely hesitated: "Of course I can." Toyota's young Sammy Pajari was quietly the surprise of the day, fifth quickest just 2.4 seconds off the lead, and is being talked up as a future contender. "When you find consistency, you can add a little bit of extra pace," the DirtFish team noted. "Pajari will be a contender for wins. Maybe here, this weekend."
The new compound itself is the bigger story. Drivers and analysts pointed to the bigger blocks as the reason the wear pattern looks different from previous Portugals. "These are obviously the new ones with the bigger blocks – not a complete change, but quite a change," said co-commentator David Evans. "The blocks themselves are bigger. They move more. There's more wobble room." Oliver Solberg's M-Sport crew were already pre-emptively swapping air filters between stages, an unusually early sign of how loose and silty the gravel is.
The one big unknown is the rain. Saturday morning had been the original pencilled-in time for the storm, but as Friday's running progressed the forecast was sliding back, with fewer dry stages between cars and the wet. "Ours yesterday afternoon, our forecast seems to have changed and it looks as if maybe the rain is coming tomorrow," the DirtFish broadcast noted. "That then will pose issues in terms of soft tyre allocation. It's going to be a fascinating strategic battle through the rest of the weekend."
The leaderboard at the end of Thursday's run will be reset on Friday's longer loop, but the bigger story is already locked: in 2026 Rally Portugal, the rally is going to be won and lost on tyre maths as much as on stage times. With hards used heavily already and a storm front on the horizon, the smart money is on the team that gets the soft strategy right when the weather finally turns.
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*Originally published on [Motorsports Global](https://motorsports.global/article/wrc-rally-portugal-2026-tyre-wear-strategy-pajari-fourmaux-ogier-neuville). Visit for full coverage.*