There’s nothing new about summer celebrations in Jyväskylä, they’re a cornerstone of our sport. You don’t forget your first win on roads like Moksi or Urria. Success on those stages tends to set fair foundations for world champions.
For the wider world, that was clearly the case early last month, when 19-year-old Jaspar Vaher stood on top of his Toyota GR Yaris Rally2 to celebrate a 1.6-second win over Hyundai factory driver – and winner of Jyväskylä’s other rally – Esapekka Lappi.
Doubtless, Sunday will provide another champagne moment in central Finland, but what Vaher did seven weeks ago in Jyväskylä, on the fifth round of the Finnish Rally Championship in just his seventh start in a four-wheel drive car, was enormously impressive.
Predictably, results like that only serve to brighten the spotlight and, like you, I’d heard plenty about Vaher in the lead-up to his home WRC round in Estonia two weeks ago.
Looking ahead to my first conversation with Vaher, I was intrigued to see how the 19-year-old Estonian approached the media. When I talked to Markko Märtin for the first time at the top of the millennium, mutual friend Michael ‘Beef’ Park – and their manager Paul Turner – helped break the ice. A decade on and it was Märtin who was breaking the ice when he introduced his younger countryman Ott Tänak.
Vaher's confidence with the media was immediately striking
No ice-breakers were needed for Vaher. The handshake was firm, the eye-contact consistent. Constant. He was interested and interesting. Fascinating, even.
Yes, he shunted on Saturday morning, but that doesn’t really matter. Vaher’s trajectory is pretty obvious.
The first question had to be about beating Lappi in Jyväskylä. The response was considered, thoughtful.
“We did a good job,” he said. “I think we deserved the win.”
Having recently graduated from secondary school, Vaher’s grasp of history is reliably solid. His potential to re-write it, ferocious. In fact, he’s already started: he’s the first non-Japanese to be taken under the wing of Toyota Gazoo Racing’s WRC Challenge Program.
“To be honest,” he smiled, “it’s a dream come true and, for sure, an opportunity of a lifetime. I’m really proud. I’m still not sure if I have realized really how big this really is. But yeah, I’m just trying to do the best I can and enjoy all the moments.”
Vaher has been flying and exploring the limits in his first season of Rally2
After the comparative backwater of the Finnish Rally Championship and selected rallies around Europe, the cut and thrust of WRC2 has raised the stakes. And an early bath in Estonia didn’t do much to settle the nerves. But…
“There’s not so much pressure,” he said. “I think the pressure is only built by me. This year it’s a bit too soon to be expecting some big results”
There’s a refreshing, youthful candour about Vaher.
Talking, for example, about the lead into Rally Estonia, he admitted he was counting the sleeps to the start from a week out.
It will have been the same here in Finland, where, for the second time in a fortnight, he faces the best world rallying’s second tier has on offer – including fellow fast countrymen Robert Virves, Romet Jürgenson and Patrick Enok.
“At the moment,” Vaher said, “we have so many top [Estonian] drivers in the Rally2 category who are really fast and also have got the funding to do this whole thing. So, I think, at the moment Estonian rallying is living the best it’s ever been.
“Last year we didn’t have so many drivers, but now we have so many and, for sure, it’s really nice to see so many Estonians in the Rally2 category, it’s really nice to compare to ourselves.”
While such comparisons are utterly inevitable, they’re similarly futile. For now.
Forget any talk of a blotted copybook in Estonia, this is the start of a new chapter for Vaher and another page in the Baltic nation’s ridiculously successful rallying story.
