Meet rallying’s latest wonderkid

I remember the first time I heard about Jaspar Vaher. I was on the phone in the depths of winter, around Monte Carlo Rally time, calling the latest young Estonian talent on the cusp of making it properly onto the World Rally Championship ladder.

Romet Jürgenson had just won the FIA Rally Star European continental final, bagging a rally program in a Ford Fiesta Rally3 in 2023. A new talent had seemingly come out of nowhere, beating all drivers who’d been hotly tipped to take the big prize. Naturally, I had to dig deeper. Where had he come from? How did he get here?

That’s where Vaher came in. When Jürgenson’s attempts to move from amateur to national rallying had hit the skids, he’d become a co-driver to pre-teenaged Vaher, he had explained.

Something about this stood out. A few drivers, all much older than Vaher, had asked Jürgenson to navigate for them. Instead, he’d put his trust in an 11-year-old. Why?

“Immediately when I met him in the folkraces, I saw that he knows how to drive and the trust comes quite easily when you know he has that ability and the confidence behind the wheel,” Jürgenson tells DirtFish. “That’s quite simple.”

Vaher’s speed will have been known to those keeping a close eye on grassroots Estonian rallying for some time. But a dominant 2022 season, cleaning up in the Estonian and Latvian Junior national championships, cemented what had been suspected – Vaher could be the most promising talent of a generation.

His form is simply incredible. In Estonia, he took Juniors victory every rally bar the season finale – which he lost due to a broken driveshaft on the penultimate stage forcing him to park up. In a season that had 51 special stages, he won 47 – and he missed two due to the aforementioned mechanical problems.

It wasn’t always this way. When Vaher started doing amateur rallies as a young child in Estonia, he hadn’t started out with designs on climbing the ladder to WRC stardom. That came later.

“At first, I didn’t think I could make it this far or even try to do real rallies being this quick,” admits Vaher. “It was just a hobby for me, for fun on the weekends.

“I felt I had the speed. I was still so young that I was maybe a bit scared sometimes of the speed because sometimes, third, fourth gear, it goes really fast.

“But, apart from that, I felt I could drive by the pacenotes. I was listening to the pacenotes and the speed I had was also quite good. I didn’t worry too much.”

Shifting from hobby to a possible career came in 2019. A similarly dominant season to his 2022 efforts in the junior amateur sprint rally ranks made him believe there was a future for him on the rough stuff.

It was around this time that Jürgenson had been in the passenger seat alongside Vaher. He understood exactly why Vaher’s dominant streak in the amateur ranks had come to fruition.

“When he started, firstly his father showed him the right techniques,” suggests Jürgenson. “And then, he knew what to do. He obviously has some talent as well.

“He has been driving with the correct technique since the beginning. Now he fully understands how to drive fast; nobody needs to teach him anymore. He’s done it right from the beginning and now it’s paying off.”

This sounds awfully familiar.

Suggesting that Vaher, in terms of knowing how to handle a car and make it go quickly, can’t be taught anything more about going fast, is rather similar to an anecdote Esapekka Lappi recently told about newly crowned World Rally champion Kalle Rovanperä.

“There has been a time, 10 years ago, that he was driving for the first time a four-wheel-drive S2000 Fiesta and that was my car, and I went to teach him,” Lappi said of Rovanperä.

“But the problem was that I couldn’t teach him, and at that moment I said to my wife as well that we are f***** in the future. And I was not wrong!”

Having that father figure leading the way can make all the difference. Rovanperä had his father, former Peugeot, Mitsubishi and Seat works driver Harri, helping him hands-on in his formative years. And in Formula 1, Max Verstappen certainly wouldn’t have become a world champion without father Jos’s efforts when he was karting.

It’s much the same in the Vaher household. Jaspar’s father Avo has been teaching him everything he knows – both in and out of the drivers’ seat.

“He’s helping me a lot during the rallies, on the off-season also helping the driving side, teaching me some things,” says the younger Vaher.

“But not that much anymore,” he adds, rather ominously.

“He’s also my mechanic, doing the works that need to be done on the car and also giving me support during the tough times.”

That includes getting his hands dirty under the hood. Rally distances might be shorter and the cars more reliable than ever – but you’ll never know when you’ll need to rush for an emergency repair.

“In my opinion, it’s a really important side of rallying and undervalued,” says Vaher.

“You need to know how the car is built and what you can and can’t fix. Also, my dad is quite smart from that side, so I’ve learned a lot from him.”

How Vaher prepared for his blockbuster 2022 season was also smart. For over a year beforehand, he sat in the drivers’ seat of a Ford Fiesta R2. Vaher effectively competed in most Estonian national championship rounds – just without being part of the final classification.

Estonian Autosport Union had made a special exception just for Vaher. Loaning him the Fiesta R2, EAU allowed him to run as a zero car on several rallies that he’d go on to dominate this year.

“It was a really valuable experience,” he says. “I have to say a big thanks to the Estonian Autosport Union for that opportunity, of course. They gave a special loan to a 13-year-old that was really fast but hadn’t really driven fast in the forest.

“It helped me a lot because with every rally I got quicker and the pacenotes were getting better. I was really developing my own driving style, watching onboard videos, doing pacenotes. It was really a dream come true.”

Estonia’s national motorsport federation understood Vaher was no ordinary youngster coming through the ranks. It was willing to take unprecedented steps to support his development.

“At the end of last year, I got to drive two rallies with a number [as an entrant], when I was 14. In Estonia, no 14-year-old has ever started in a rally as a real driver with a number. So that was quite special, they were trusting me. I think I coped quite well and showed really good speed even in this older car.”

Vaher and his family are already plotting the next step. Having cleaned up on home soil, the European Rally Championship is his next target. And this clearly isn’t an off-the-cuff idea: ask him what his hopes are for 2023 and it shows he’s been studying this year’s ERC season in great detail.

“The rallies will be really demanding, as I’ve seen the videos and everything. For example, Ken Torn, who has been driving ERC, he has said that it looks easier than it really is.

“The guys in the category are really fast: [Laurent] Pellier and [Óscar] Palomo,” Vaher points out, referring to the leading lights in the ERC4 Junior category for Rally4 cars this season.

That said, he’s refusing to dream too big for now. At only 15 years of age, he’s still many years away from looking at a future in the WRC.

Then again, when asked whether he believes he can climb all the way to compete at the top level of the rallying ladder, he asks a question in response.

“You mean like I could be a world champion?,” Vaher queries.

Sure. Why not. Can he?

“I don’t know. I think it’s still too early to say things like that. I know that there is still a lot of work to do.

“Also with the money, it’s really difficult for us normal people. I think we’ll just go step by step every year and see what it will bring.”

But ask Jürgenson and he’s convinced Vaher is headed for the WRC. The question is when, not if.

“That’s one of the reasons why I wanted to [work with him],” says Jürgenson. “Because I didn’t have a chance myself, I was quite focused on him, trying to help him in any way possible.

“But life changed a bit for me as well, so I now have a chance myself.”

If Vaher keeps this rate of development up, he’s going to have plenty of chances himself too.