Rising World Rally Championship star Sami Pajari says scoring a first stage win on his top-flight debut at Rally Finland has surpassed his expectations for this weekend.
Toyota has handed the WRC2 title contender an opportunity to showcase his skills by piloting a fifth GR Yaris at the team’s home event.
Pajari’s rally hopes suffered a dent in Friday’s opening stage [Laukaa] when he suffered a half spin before understeering into a ditch in treacherous conditions that caused significant damage to his GR Yaris’ rear wing.
However, the Finn was able to navigate through the morning loop before setting an impressive pace across the afternoon with a fully repaired car.
Pajari and co-driver Enni Malkonen clocked a second fastest stage time on stage six before delivering a stunning milestone effort to claim stage nine [Ruuhimaki] to complete an impressive turnaround. Pajari took the stage win by 0.5s from team-mate and eight-time world champion Sebastien Ogier.
“I thought before the rally that [a stage win] would be nice but I thought it would be like too much, so I was not expecting anything like this,” said Pajari, who ended Friday sitting sixth overall.
“It means quite a lot. Obviously, the afternoon was really good and already on the first stage I was second fastest and only Kalle [Rovanpera] was faster there. But when the conditions were something like what I am used to it [the speed] was coming in a natural way.
“Even on this Ruuhimaki stage I was not planning to do a stage win but it was a clean drive, and I was enjoying it. I’m not going to say it was easy or something like this, but I wasn’t pushing like crazy.
“The morning was something so difficult. If you look at the front guys, even many of them made some mistakes in the morning loop. For sure, the conditions were really tricky and tough and something which we do not face so often at Rally Finland. I think it was just pure lack of experience for me.”
Sami Pajari, Enni Mälkönen, Toyota Gazoo Racing WRT Toyota GR Yaris Rally1
Photo by: Toyota Racing
To put Pajari’s feat into context it took Rally Finland leader and two-time world champion Rovanpera 25 attempts to claim a maiden WRC stage win. Out of the current WRC drivers only Ogier has achieved a fastest time in the top class quicker when the Frenchman won his second-ever stage in the top tier at Rally GB in 2008.
Pajari’s triumph arrives just two weeks after Martins Sesks chalked up his first WRC stage win in only his second Rally1 appearance.
When asked about Pajari’s stage win, team-mate Rovanpera added: “If you do your first stage win in your first rally with the top car it is a proper job and Ruuhimaki is not an easy stage, so really well done.”
Toyota sporting director Kaj Lindstrom declared Pajari’s stage win as the “cherry on the cake” but was just as impressed by the way the young driver handled his recovery following his stage two excursion.
“I would say that he showed that he’s mature enough to handle this kind of situation,” said Lindstrom. It was a difficult start but he was able to reset and was calm enough to bring the car home like we asked him to. He went out in the afternoon and drove really well. I think the stage win was like the cherry on the cake.
“It is always impressive to see the new driver coming in and with less experience to do it. It is great to see these new up-and-coming stars like [Martins] Sesks and Sami.”