It would potentially have been a stretch to consider Romet Jürgenson as favorite to win the Junior WRC title in 2024. Yet this is the position he is now in, having won the most recent round of the series in Croatia.
Next up for the Juniors is the gravel of Sardinia. On paper you’d think Jürgenson, who honed his craft in Estonia before winning the FIA Rally Star talent search and with it a ticket into the world championship, would be most at home on the loose stuff. That’s not entirely true.
“On gravel, I should feel more natural,” Jürgenson tells DirtFish. “But to be honest, I still lack a bit of confidence on gravel, especially on these kind of twisty roads where you don’t really have any room for error.
“I definitely need a bit more time to get used to it. But I think on asphalt, we proved that we have the speed and we have the consistency.”
No gravel specialist: Jürgenson set nine fastest stage times en route to victory in Croatia
This is the grand irony. A driver it would be easy to tar as a gravel specialist was the dominant force on Croatia’s sealed surface. Nine stage wins – and thus nine bonus points – were scored on the only asphalt round of the season.
“I felt like I didn’t push too much and I was just driving with my own speed,” says Jürgenson of his maiden Junior WRC win last time out. “But the times were coming really, let’s say, easily, actually. So it was a bit of a surprise to me.”
But should we be surprised? He was the winner of a Europe-wide talent search for a potential rally champion of the future. And that talent search was conducted at the Estering, a circuit featuring a mix of asphalt and gravel. He had to prove himself on both surfaces to get his winning ticket.
Being fast on every surface – he also finished second on the snow of Rally Sweden to local hotshot Mille Johansson – is a useful thing to have in your locker. But for now, the challenge for the rest of 2024 is gravel. This week Rally Italy beckons, followed by the lightning-fast Finnish stages and then the rough and rocky Acropolis to finish.
Lacking confidence on gravel is somewhat understandable once you consider the surface nearly derailed his ambitions of climbing the rallying ladder when they’d only just started. Wind the clock back a year to San Marino Rally and Jürgenson’s first competitive outing in a Rally3 car had ended with a crash.
Second place in Sweden helped to put Jürgenson on top of the JWRC standings
Current Junior WRC rival and fellow Rally Star member Taylor Gill had just taken the class lead before midday service. But the push to retake the lead rapidly went awry.
“I went to the stage immediately trying to push with the same speed, which was obviously a mistake,” admits Jürgenson. “When you do a big change in the setup, then you have to initially feel it. I had to really think through what we did wrong.
“Looking back now, I think it was even a good thing that we had this kind of shock in the beginning. It really made us focus even more. After that, we prepared ourselves really well for each event and knew exactly what we needed from that. I remember very well the rally after that was Rally Weiz. I was really happy that I could really follow my plan, which was just to get through with a comfortable speed. I never felt like I needed to push to prove something because I knew that I still had rallies left.”
Step forward to the present day and three rallies stand between him and a potential Junior WRC title. In the largest Junior WRC field since the championship became a single-make enterprise it was hard to see how a clear leader could emerge. But that’s what Jürgenson is thus far – 30 points ahead of Gill, the highest placed of the series regulars. Acropolis counts for double and one round will be dropped from the final tally but by dint of being the only double podium finisher so far in 2024, Estonia’s latest young talent already looks like he’s made a big step towards a title tilt.
So, we pose the question directly. Is he the title favorite already?
“It’s always an interesting question. If you had asked it five years ago, it would have been completely different,” he says. Five years ago his world was very different – he’d given up the driver’s seat in amateur rallying to be a co-driver by then. He’d hoped to make it in rallying but had given up due to a lack of money.
How times change.
“Now I have to look at it as a realistic goal. The beginning has been good and I feel like there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be able to do it. It’s a matter of luck as well, especially in these difficult rallies that we will have in Sardinia and Greece with all the hidden rocks that we could face and the punctures that can follow.
“I think it’s still very open. But I see myself as a contender.”
Jürgenson studied law when he wasn't competing, but now rallying full-time is a possibility
There are still traces of his old life, as it were, in the present day. When he won the golden ticket to become an FIA Rally Star, Jürgenson was studying law at university. When speaking the week before Rally Italy, that particular journey has finally come to a close.
“Actually, today was the day that I did my last exam, the bachelor exam,” he says. “When I get the results it should be finished and that’s it.”
How did he think he did?
“I hope I was average. I would be happy with average.”
Of course. It doesn’t matter quite as much now. Being average at law is fine if he can keep scoring firsts in rallying.
