The 2026 World Rally Championship will likely be remembered as Elfyn Evans vs Oliver Solberg.
Which is ironic, considering there was a time Sami Pajari was seen as Evans’ only credible rival for the prize.
Flying under the radar suits the unassuming Finn just fine, but there was plenty to shout about from his 2026.
He scored the equal highest number of victories (three) with Solberg, and scored considerably more podiums than anyone else (nine) from 13 events.
In the end, Pajari finished just six points shy of world champion Evans and one adrift of Solberg.
“I think it’s safe to say we had a very, very good season,” Pajari told DirtFish. “Nine podiums, three wins and at the end we lost the second place by one point and win by six points, so I don’t know when it was last so close [between the top three]?”
Pajari lost a championship position on the final round, but was still only six points shy of the champion
Never, since the points system changed in 2010 to reward 25 points for a victory.
“But yeah of course in a way you can always look for the things that it’s a shame to lose even the title with such a small margin,” Pajari continued, “but at the same time I truly believe that us and Oliver for sure also did a really crazy good job this weekend, but if we take the whole season, maybe us and Oliver, we have still time to take some titles in the future, at least fight for them.
“But I truly believe that Elfyn and Scott deserve it in a big picture, so I’m super, super happy for them.”
Pajari will be 25 when he starts next year’s Monte Carlo Rally, and he’s already got experience fighting for the championship at the final round. The same applies to Solberg.
Pajari feels ready to lead the next generation of drivers, alongside his Toyota team-mate.
“I think we are part of the kind of the next generation in a way because there has been many, many faces who has been around for 10-15 years,” Pajari explained.
“There’s nothing wrong with that but sometimes there will be this kind of generation change, and I think me and Oliver, we are part of this next… OK we are already there, but kind of the new generation.
“So in a way I could see that we will be around for many many years – at least I hope so, if we can be competitive, but at least so far I believe it’s nice to be around and hopefully spend a couple of years here.”
Pajari admitted he was “hoping” to be able to fight for the championship in 2026, but didn’t expect to have such a strong season.
“Well, of course we were hoping for something like that, but maybe I was not able to kind of think about this good season actually,” he said.
“I think there were many things which went really our way. Monte was a disaster personally, but after that we took stage wins on every rally and we were basically able to fight for victories even in most of the rallies. So we need to be happy for that.”
