On 26 September 2026, Soraya Barreiro died during the Rally Villa de Llanes after a car left the El Mazucu stage and caught fire. José Antonio "Cohete" Suárez still secured the S-CER title, but the result brought no celebration.
On 26 September 2026, car No. 61 left the El Mazucu special stage and caught fire. Germán Romano was driving the BMW 325i. Soraya Barreiro, a 20-year-old co-driver from the Llanes area, died in the crash.
The organizers stopped the Rally Villa de Llanes. They also canceled every remaining timed stage. The sporting result came second.
The fatal accident occurred on the El Mazucu special stage, where car No. 61, a BMW 325i driven by Germán Romano, left the course and caught fire.
Suárez had already secured the Spanish championship before the fatal accident. His main rival, Diego Ruiloba, retired several stages earlier after suffering two punctured tyres. That gave the Skoda driver the mathematical margin he needed for the title.
The numbers settled it. They did not define the day.
Efrén Llarena won the interrupted event. Iván Ares finished second, and Jorge Cagiao took third. Llarena is a former European champion, but the result left little room for ceremony. Suárez was classified fourth. He would have needed only seventh place if Ruiloba had won.
Escudería Villa de Llanes announced an irrevocable decision to cancel all remaining timed stages after the tragedy. Soraya Barreiro, 20, was a local participant from the Llanes area, which intensified the community’s grief over the accident.
Escudería Villa de Llanes announced an irrevocable decision to cancel the remaining stages after the crash. The event was then put into mourning. Teams observed a minute of silence, and the podium ceremony went ahead without the usual celebrations.
Soraya Barreiro was a local participant from the Llanes area. Her connection to the community deepened the grief across Asturias.
That changed everything.
According to Motorsport España, the official classification still recognised Suárez as the 2026 champion. The title had been settled mathematically before the fatal incident, and no revision had been reported as of 26 September 2026. Motorsport España and La Voz de Asturias also reported the minute of silence and the absence of normal celebrations at the podium.
Suárez's championship remains official. Ruiloba's retirement created the decisive margin, and the result stands in the S-CER classification.
The contrast with a separate Spanish news case involving an evicted Madrid resident appears in this earlier housing report: that story focused on a political dispute over a home. In Llanes, a rally title became almost irrelevant after a fatal loss.
The classification recorded a champion. The people at Llanes chose silence instead. For the Supercampeonato de España community, remembrance came before celebration after Soraya Barreiro died in the event she loved.
