Pajari Gains Valuable Experience at CER

Sami Pajari and Enni Mälkönen's WRC Central European Rally unfolded under fortunate stars until Sunday morning. Early in the opening special stage of Sunday, however, one corner caught the Finnish duo off guard and they went an inch wide. A small ditch on the outside of the corner gently tipped the car over. Although it might have been possible to continue, they deemed it unnecessary, as this event was, after all, all about learning to drive the Rally1 car on asphalt.

In their third career outing with the Toyota Rally1 car, Sami Pajari and Enni Mälkönen navigated three days with meticulous caution. They maintained the same risk-free approach for Sunday's four special stages, aiming to reach the finish line of the competition.

Under a bright autumn sun, the Am Hochwald special stage began in dry conditions. Despite this, some sections saw cars sliding slightly on the asphalt. Five kilometres into the stage, Pajari's car appeared to drift just outside the optimal line in a left-hand corner, not turning in as sharply as needed.

A shallow ditch caused the car to gently roll over, and the duo soon climbed out to clear the road for the following crews. Split time monitoring indicated that overdriving was not the issue.

"I can't quite say what happened. The car understeered a bit, and we went wide in the corner; the car softly rolled over three times. The damage isn't significant, and we might have been able to continue, but it wouldn't make sense in this situation. I believe my pacenote for the corner was accurate, and there was nothing really surprising about it. Until now, the rally had gone fairly flawlessly. Elsewhere, there might not have been even a small ditch, but this time luck wasn't on our side," Pajari recounted shortly after the incident.

Since the event began on Thursday, the pair had been performing excellently in terms of their learning journey. After the opening day, the driver was all smiles behind the wheel of the Toyota GR Yaris Rally1 Hybrid.

"This is indeed enjoyable. Of course, we still have a lot to learn, but we're trying to maintain a risk-free pace," the driver reflected after Thursday.

Friday's opening stage in Klatovy went smoothly; the duo were on pace even with the world champions in front. However, the hybrid unit in their car ceased functioning and couldn't be repaired during the day. Throughout Friday, the team progressed at a good speed on the special stages, even though the hybrid boost would have been beneficial on many straights and during acceleration. Their position after Friday was sixth, less than one and a half minutes behind the leader.

"It's hard to assess how much we lost without it, but it doesn't even matter. In the day's final stage, the conditions were such that it wasn't easy to distinguish where it was slippery and where it wasn't, so it was better to get through safely," the driver mused as evening darkness fell over the special stage.

On Saturday, many drivers continued to struggle with sliding on the special stages, including the top names of the championship. In Pajari's team, the hybrid unit was now operational, and their times were closer to the top contenders—at best, they were only 3.6 seconds off the fastest time. While on Friday their gap to the lead was 0.71 seconds per kilometre, comparing solely Saturday's times, it was 0.37 seconds per kilometre. They headed into Sunday just over two minutes behind their team-mate Sébastien Ogier, who was leading the race.

"Perhaps we've been a bit too cautious at times, but on the other hand, many others have had quite a few incidents. We've tried to stick to the middle of the road, so to speak. It feels like we've progressed over the weekend," Pajari said after Saturday.

The Finnish duo's racing season continues in just over four weeks at the season-ending round in Japan. There, they will compete for the WRC2 class championship in a Printsport Racing Toyota GR Yaris Rally2. Currently third in the series standings, a finish within the top two in Japan could see them overtake Oliver Solberg to clinch the championship.