Toyota Gazoo Racing World Rally Team driver Sami Pajari scored his second successive victory in the FIA World Rally Championship last weekend, triumphing on home roads at Rally Finland.
The 24-year-old’s win alongside co-driver Marko Salminen comes just two weeks after their maiden victory at Rally Estonia. It is the 200th win achieved by a Finnish driver in the WRC, in what was the 75th anniversary edition of Rally Finland.
Sébastien Ogier and Julien Ingrassia – reunited in competition for the first time in almost five years in the absence of regular co-driver Vincent Landais – led the rally with a strong performance from the first forest stage on Friday morning until SS17 on Saturday afternoon when they went off the road and crashed heavily.
After staying under observation in hospital overnight, both Ogier and Ingrassia were released on Sunday morning to return home. Both the crew and the team would like to thank everybody – from the medical teams to the fans – for their support and good wishes.
Having also driven a strong and consistent rally – including six stage wins – despite losing time in demanding weather conditions on Friday afternoon, Pajari picked up the lead at the end of Saturday and took an advantage of 46.4 seconds into the final day. Once more appearing to take the magnitude of the potential result in his stride, he adopted a safer approach through Sunday’s two runs of Himos-Jämsa (the longest stage of the rally at 18.7 miles) to secure victory by 26.7s.
Oliver Solberg and co-driver Elliott Edmondson finished second for the second rally in succession with another well-managed drive after conceding the best part of a minute when they experienced the worst of the wet conditions on Friday. Solberg was able to top the Super Sunday classification despite experiencing back pain after a heavy landing during the first pass.
Elfyn Evans and Scott Martin completed a podium lockout in third to increase their championship lead. They had been second overall when they rolled at the end of Saturday morning, before recovering back into the top three in their repaired car during the afternoon. Evans went on to come second on Super Sunday and win the Power Stage by just 0.025s over Solberg. Evans now leads the drivers’ standings by 30 points over Pajari, who climbs to second.
Takamoto Katsuta and Aaron Johnston finished sixth overall. Having lost two minutes with limited visibility in Friday’s rain, they were on course to finish fifth before dropping a place when they made contact with a tree in the rally’s final stage. Katsuta is now third in the championship, 41 points from the lead, with Solberg up to fourth and Ogier fifth.
Even with Pajari scoring under the separate TGR-WRT2 banner, TGR-WRT increase their manufacturers’ championship lead to 174 points.
