Pajari’s calculated approach to his first full WRC season

The young Finn is as relaxed as ever as he embarks on a 14-round campaign with Toyota

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This is a very, very big moment for Sami Pajari. It’s one he’s been dreaming about since he started rallying in 2016.

Back then it was just that, a dream. A Finnish fairytale. But as time passed and a Junior WRC podium became a Junior WRC win and a seat at the WRC2 table became a WRC2 title, his hopes and dreams morphed into expectation and delivery.

“Maybe,” said Pajari, pondering the question of dream and reality, “six, seven years or something like that back in time, I was maybe dreaming about it. But then every year it got kind of closer and we always made what was needed to, let’s say, be ready for the next step.

“Last year, I was, of course, hoping for this or something like this and I was kind of enabled to think that it’s a dream that can be possible even. So maybe at some point of last year, maybe I thought it can happen, but not maybe much before.”

It, for clarity, is this. Today. Testing a Toyota as part of the full factory squad ahead of his first full season at rallying’s very top table.

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Pajari has three Rally1 starts to his name already. He'll get a whole load more in 2025

And, fresh from an initial engineering debrief following his first significant mileage on Hankooks with no hybrid, Pajari’s still in download mode. He’s asked a question, he delivers the answers. Don’t get me wrong, he’s engaging, thoughtful and insightful, but there’s not a whole heap of emotion coming from the 23-year-old.

Remember the end of Ruuhimäki, second time through last year? Remember confirmation that he’d beaten Sébastien Ogier by half a second, and the best of the rest by more? That was raw Sami emotion. There was a shake of the camera, a Grönholm-esque ‘Oi-oi-oi’, and an admission: “I don’t know what to say.”

That was the first stage win. You sense the emotions will be kept in check until the next milestone: the first outright win, then the first title.

Pajari’s all about the next page.

“It was always more a question about challenging or showing to myself that I can do it,” he said. “And once I was able to do some nice results and challenge myself always with the cars I was driving before, then always you start to look for something new, the next thing to win.

“So, OK, we won with Rally2, so then there is obviously one step more to do. I just like to challenge myself, which is now the case.

“For this year, we will have some specific target for maybe one rally or something, but for the full season it’s not so easy to say what would be a good achievement. We still need to see what is our level and how it starts to go on and then maybe we can make some more specific targets throughout the year.”

What about next week? What about the season-opener in the mountains he’s just descended from?

He smiles a thin smile at the prospect of his full-time debut coming on a rally as notoriously capricious as the Monte.

“For the first rally,” he ventures, “it’s just to finish and have a good feeling with flow. But if the feeling is good, maybe then why not to go a bit quicker? Like we saw already last year, if all the conditions were fine, then we can have already some quite nice speed. But, maybe, still we need some small experience to really fight with the top guys.”

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Pajari's eyes are firmly fixed forward on the next target

There’s no doubting Pajari’s trio of GR Yaris Rally1 outings were strong last season: fourth in Finland, sixth in Chile with a repeat of that result likely before he rolled out of Central Europe on the final morning.

“I got a taste of this beast last year,” he says, nodding towards the salt-dirtied Toyota which sits behind him. “Now we’re without the hybrid, so we have a little bit less power, but so far everything is going really well. The test has been good and the feeling is nice.”

Ready?

“Ready.”

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