Estonia isn’t a country known for its Tarmac rallies. Indeed, the national championship currently features just one event with any Tarmac at all, and even that includes gravel.
But yet Estonian drivers have always tended to displaye a strong knack for the black stuff in years gone by.
An impressive 40% of Markko Märtin’s World Rally Championship victories were on asphalt, while Estonia’s only world champion to-date, Ott Tänak, has beaten the world’s best on Tarmac four times in his career.
Romet Jürgenson, Europe’s finalist for the FIA Rally Star talent search scheme, has now joined the club as he emerged victorious on last weekend’s closely-fought battle on Rallye Weiz.
The Estonian beat Peruvian Jose Caparó by just 13.1 seconds, with Australian Taylor Gill only another 3.2s behind as rallying’s hottest young talents faced their second round of FIA Rally Star’s training season.
Four weeks earlier, Gill had won the San Marino Rally ahead of Caparó, enjoying a big scrap with Jürgenson that eventually went Gill’s way when Jürgenson retired with suspension damage to his Ford Fiesta Rally3.
But off the loose and onto the Tar, Jürgenson found his groove.
Former kart racer Caparó made the brightest start, leading the way after the first leg after an impressive tire choice of crossed hards and mediums, but Jürgenson soon hit the front and powered on to victory with five stage wins from 13.
Behind Caparó and Gill, Abdullah Al-Tawqi was the only other finisher as Annia Cillóniz rolled and Max Smart crashed in testing and was unable to take the start.
“I’m really happy to be honest,” admitted Jürgenson.
“The aim for this rally was to get to the end with a comfortable speed and we managed it quite well with no moments. It was good to battle with Taylor and Abito for comparing the speeds.
“When you look at the overall classification we are quite OK in terms of speed so it was good for the competition.”
And the cherry on top of the cake? Jürgenson will compete on his home round of the WRC this week in a Fiesta Rally4.
Not a bad couple of weeks for this 23-year-old!
