Do you remember what first instigated your own passion for rallying? Chances are there was a driver – perhaps a national hero, or a family member or friend who was part of the rallying scene – that introduced you to it.
Me personally, I found it on my own. No doubt the reason the World Rally Championship was a regular fixture on BBC Grandstand was Colin McRae’s meteoric rise to world champion status.
Here’s the thing: I’m a traitor.
I spent most of my childhood only a few miles away from Lanark, the family home of the McRaes. But truthfully, I liked the Finns more. Marcus Grönholm especially. He was straightforward, no-nonsense, honest, to the point. I liked that.
Finns are indoctrinated into rallying from a young age, of course. It’s baked into the country’s DNA in a way no other nation has replicated. Finland is the spiritual home of rallying – and I doubt you can find a bulletproof article to prove that statement wrong.
What’s the point of this trip down memory lane? It’s what rallying being woven into the DNA of a nation does for its success on the global stage. Finland is, in the eyes of its people, back where it belongs, finally breaking France’s long-running stranglehold on ‘its’ series thanks to Kalle Rovanperä’s championship win this year.
But see, I’m starting to think there’s a second nation that’s heading in that direction. Estonia is gripped with rallying fever – and it’s starting to look like there’s potential for a golden generation down the line.
McRae kindled a love affair with rallying for the Brits. A long line of world champions like Ari Vatanen, Hannu Mikkola, Timo Salonen, Juha Kankkunen & co did it for Finland.
Ott Tänak’s doing it for Estonia. A nation of only 1.3 million people looks set to become disproportionately excellent at a sport that before the 2010s it hadn’t been particularly well known for.
Now, I don’t live in Estonia; I don’t have a feel for the pulse. So, I ask around. After Saaremaa Rally, I’m having a chat with Romet Jürgenson, runner-up in the Estonian national championship’s EMV7 class.
He confirms what I had assumed: “I think he’s definitely the most popular athlete [in Estonia], for sure,” Jürgenson says of Tänak.
It’s made rallying more visible in Estonia, undoubtedly. But it’s also starting to have a noticeable effect at grassroots level.
Amateur rallying has never been stronger. Events where you can turn up in a basic road car with a rollcage, extinguisher and the most fundamental of safety modifications fitted, are thriving.
It’s where Jürgenson started out and competed regularly up until 2019, the year Tänak won the title.
Going back recently, he’s noticed a stark difference.
“After Ott’s success, it’s been quite crazy in Estonia. You can see it in the folkraces,” he says.
Robert has been helping me with the pacenotes in my earlier years and also we've been playing rally games together like Richard Burns RallyJasper Vaher on former navigator Romet Jürgenson
“You have 30 plus youngsters driving right now. I remember when I drove, there was only like 10 or something in our class. So, it’s gone up quite fast.”
Any potential superstar currently in the under-16 category of amateur rallying still has many years ahead of them to get anywhere near the WRC. But look around and there’s already a group of drivers who are starting to knock on the door.
Jürgenson’s one of them. In addition to his exploits in the national championship, he won the European final of this year’s FIA Rally Star talent search, lining him up for a ‘training season’ in a Ford Fiesta Rally3. Ace that and it’s onto a season of Junior WRC in 2024.
That series, of course, was just won by an Estonian – Robert Virves. He has four guaranteed drives in WRC2 next year and appears likely to do at least another two on top of that in a Ford Fiesta Rally2.
And then there’s the youngest of the hotshots: Jasper Vaher. Estonia’s motorsport federation bent the rules for Vaher so he could compete as a seeded competitor on national rallies as a 14-year-old – an unprecedented move.
He’s just off the back of a season where he demolished the field in the Estonian Junior category in the first year, he was eligible to tackle the full season. The European Rally Championship appears to beckon for him in 2023.
So much for Finland being the world’s biggest talent factory in rallying. Estonia’s giving it a run for its money right now.
Virves, Jürgenson, Vaher – the three of them have all been working together to climb the ranks.
“Robert has been helping me with the pacenotes in my earlier years and also we’ve been playing rally games together like Richard Burns Rally, things like that,” says Vaher.
Virves and Vaher might be mates – they’ve not been able to do so much joint practice on the simulator this year with Virves’ busy schedule – but Jürgenson used to co-drive for Vaher when he was in the amateur ranks.
“It’s quite unbelievable what Romet achieved and how he got this opportunity, how he got into this European Final. It’s quite crazy,” says Vaher of his former navigator.
It might just be crazy. A country with 1.1 million people already has a world champion in its ranks, three drivers who have a shot at making it all the way to the top level and a youth system that’s three times larger than it was 36 months ago.
All three of them getting to Rally1 is statistically unlikely. But look at them on their individual merits and you can’t rule it out either.
“Talking about us three,” says Jürgenson, “I know it hasn’t come easy for any of us because all of us don’t have such wealthy families behind us.
“We’ve had to fight for it. That’s even nicer to think about.”
At this rate, there will be plenty of Estonians fighting their way into the WRC for years to come.
