Mārtiņš Sesks shifted the goalposts in terms of what to expect from a debuting Rally1 driver in the World Rally Championship, but Toyota is not expecting a repeat from Sami Pajari at next week’s Rally Finland.
Pajari has emerged as one of the rallying’s hottest talents in recent years, winning the Junior WRC title (somewhat against the odds) in 2021 and fighting Oliver Solberg and Yohan Rossel for this year’s WRC2 title with two victories so far in a Toyota GR Yaris Rally2.
The 22-year-old Finn was originally supposed to make his Rally1 debut in Latvia, but that was later deferred to his home event next week.
Given Sesks hopped into a Rally1 machine and immediately started setting competitive times and mixing it with world champions, the bar has perhaps been raised for Pajari in terms of what to expect.
But Toyota team principal Jari-Matti Latvala is keen for Pajari not to compare himself to Sesks because the circumstances are actually very different.
“I talked with Sami and I told him, the starting point is very different for you in Finland compared to Mārtiņš Sesks in Latvia, because Martin knew the roads there, the other top drivers didn’t know,” Latvala told DirtFish.
“When we go to Finland, it’s another way around. Top drivers, they have a lot of experience on these stages. Sami doesn’t have the experience so much, and Finland is less forgiving.
“The pushing in Finland is more difficult than in Latvia, so I said, don’t expect to be on the same speed.
“If you are losing about between 0.5 and 1 second per kilometer, that’s a good job. And you need to concentrate just to get the experience of the Rally1, to understand what it is when you are 1.5 seconds per kilometer faster [than in Rally2], what happens inside the car when everything is quicker.”
Pajari has benefited from two and a half days of testing in Finland ahead of his full competitive debut.
Pajari's Rally1 debut comes in a fifth GR Yaris fielded by the team
He admitted he is “just really excited” to start the rally but described it as a “moment of truth” where he can truly see where his level is.
“It’s like it’s the moment of truth. I don’t mean like I need to make a good result, but it’s like the moment when I’m really able to try properly with the Rally1 car for the first time,” Pajari said.
“And that has been the dream for a really long time and also kind of the plan for many years when we have been building the career, so it’s like a really nice big benchmark. And it feels just really, really nice and exciting.”
Pajari agreed with Latvala’s view that a Sesks-like performance should not be expected from him in Finland.
“Yeah, I think it’s quite fair in a way to start thinking about it like that. Of course, like in the first place, if the plan was to do Rally Latvia, I kind of agreed on those topics that that would have been a new event for basically everyone,” he said.
“So we would have been more on the same line, with the other drivers from the experience side, to make fresh pacenotes, and it would have been the first time to tackle those stages with those cars for everyone.
Pajari and co-driver Mälkönen have two WRC2 wins to their names this year
“So, yeah, I think Finland will be more tricky. Even [though] I’m from Finland, I know the stages quite well also myself, but not with those cars. So it’s a fully different story with those cars I guess.
“It will be tricky, I think. Even for some drivers who have been driving those top-level cars for already some time, Rally Finland is still one of the most tricky ones, so I think there is a really, really big challenge.
“So from that side it creates this that I don’t need to be really making the result, but just to gain the experience.”
Pajari’s GR Yaris Rally1 will run the #5 on it next week, but why?
“That was available!” he laughed. “And then someone else actually told me that it’s kind of like a letter S, so it’s like Sami. Kind of makes sense.
“And I think it’s just more cool to have a below-10 starting number in the World Rally Championship. That’s cool, because that’s how it used to be back in the day. So I think that’s cool.”
