Sami Pajari expects himself to become a World Rally Championship winner sooner rather than later.
The Toyota driver has made a big stride forward in 2026, despite a disastrous season-opening Monte Carlo Rally where he retired twice in three days.
The Finn immediately responded with a third-placed podium in Sweden and strung together a run of four successive WRC podiums – including second in Croatia after leading for over half of the event – which could have been five had he not been forced to stop and change a tire on Rally Portugal’s penultimate stage.
Pajari is now the only one of Toyota’s five drivers not to win a WRC round after Takamoto Katsuta’s brace in Kenya and Croatia earlier this year, and he’s keen to change that.
“Of course we are looking for the win even more because, like you said, there have been quite many really nice events and the performance has been basically quite consistent and really close to the top,” Pajari told DirtFish.
Pajari has flown this year, but can he fly the highest before the year is out?
“So we can really honestly expect that the win might come at some moment. Of course, we need to keep on working really, really hard and so on, but it should come sooner or later.”
Pajari has spent some time driving Toyota’s Rally2 car “just for fun” and 2026 which has helped him stay sharp off events and bank as much seat time as he can.
“I still believe all the seat time you can have… especially when it’s so limited with the Rally1 car what you can have, it can be really helpful to try to find it from somewhere else and still I feel it’s part of the learning,” he explained.
But the confidence that comes from consistently producing strong results has also had a positive impact on his form.
“I always say that it’s about small details on this level, that you need to make it all work for you,” said Pajari. “I think we have somehow… of course the confidence is also getting better and more because you get few nice results, but basically you just get to know the car more and you kind of start to accept more this kind of risk you need to take to make the result and so on.
“When it comes together then you can make it happen.”
Next week’s Rally Japan is the first event Pajari returns to where he has a previous podium finish. He claimed his first WRC top-three in Toyota City last November.
