Sami Pajari has been in complete control of Rally Estonia so far, winning all seven of the event’s stages on Friday.
That’s earned him a 14.7-second lead over last year’s winner Oliver Solberg, despite starting one car ahead of Solberg on the road.
Pajari was the fourth car onto the stages, one behind his world champion team-mate Sébastien Ogier.
Ogier was impressed by what his 24-year-old team-mate achieved on day one.
“I think obviously the only one who really did the difference today is Sami,” Ogier told DirtFish. “I didn’t expect to fight with him, but [to be] 30 plus seconds [behind], it’s a great effort from him.
“He has shown today that nobody could follow him. It’s not easy to do this kind of performance, winning all of the stages, so well done to him.”
Elfyn Evans faced the worst of the road conditions as first car onto the stages, ending the day ninth and 49.8 seconds shy of Pajari.
He, too, recognized the quality of his team-mate’s drive.
Pajari was in a league of his own on Friday
“He’s done a great job, hasn’t he?” Evans told DirtFish. “You know, not in the best road position and clearly being the fastest. So, yeah, brilliant job.”
Solberg is Pajari’s closest challenger on the leaderboard, but hasn’t been able to beat him on any of Friday’s stages – or even the shakedown in the morning.
However he knows what it’s like to find the perfect feeling in Estonia.
Solberg told DirtFish: “I was a bit surprised how quick he was today, I mean impressive by him today for sure, and I didn’t expect it so it was definitely something to look at and understand.
“[He’s] obviously feeling very confident and very good. And it’s like me last year, if you feel great, it’s no problem. So I just need to find back a little bit of that.”
Pajari himself admitted he was “happy” to take a clean sweep of stage wins, after driving very relaxed all day.
“Yeah, that was the plan, simple as that,” Pajari told DirtFish. “To try to be really, really on it from the beginning.
“So I tried to really find this kind of, how you call this, like attitude, like some little anger to somehow be able to push.”
Pajari’s best finish in the WRC is second, achieved at this year’s Croatia Rally.
