Home hero Pajari wins Rally Finland to ignite WRC title challenge

Sami Pajari and co-driver Marko Salminen secured home victory at Rally Finland on Sunday, completing an FIA World Rally Championship double just two weeks after their breakthrough success in Estonia.

The win moves the 24-year-old Finn to just 30 points behind his Toyota teammate Elfyn Evans in the WRC drivers’ standings, with a maximum of 35 up for grabs in each of the four remaining rallies.

Pajari carried a 46.4s advantage into Sunday’s short, sharp final leg of two passes through the 18.65-mile Himos-Jamsa test. The home fans’ favorite resisted any temptation to chase the Super Sunday and Wolf Power Stage bonus points on offer and instead managed his pace to secure victory by 26.7s over fellow Toyota GR Yaris Rally1 driver Oliver Solberg.

After finishing fifth on the rally-ending Wolf Power Stage, Pajari was greeted at the stop line by Finnish rallying legend and 1981 WRC champ Ari Vatanen, himself a two-time winner of the ultra-fast gravel event that’s become part of the Finnish national psyche.

“I don’t know what to say,” admitted Pajari. “It was a big thing to take the win in Estonia, but a home win is always something special.

“It’s not always been too easy for the Finns, but after one really crazy rally, we made it. A big thanks, first of all, to the team, but also to all the fans for all the support. It’s simply amazing. Kiitos paljon – thank you, everyone!”

As well as turning Pajari into a national hero, the result carried added historical resonance. He delivered the 200th WRC victory for a Finnish driver, having secured the country’s 199th with his maiden triumph in Estonia, and became the 14th different “Flying Finn” to win his country’s biggest sporting event during the WRC era that began in 1973.

It was also the first time a Finnish driver had won consecutive WRC rounds since Kalle Rovanpera triumphed in Poland and Latvia in 2024.

Following Rovanpera’s 2025 success on last year’s Rally Finland, the rallying-crazed nation now has home winners in consecutive editions of its WRC round for the first time since Jari-Matti Latvala’s victories in 2014 and '15. And keeping those stats coming, Pajari and two-time WRC champ Rovanpera (who’s taking a sabbatical from the WRC in 2026) are the first two different Finns to achieve the feat in successive years since Mikko Hirvonen and Latvala in 2009 and 2010.

A home win on Rally Finland is always special, but Sami Pajari’s victory racked up some additional historic milestones for the WRC’s long line of “Flying Finns.”

Toyota, whose WRC program is based in host city Jyvaskyla, completed a one-two-three result and recorded its eighth Rally Finland victory from the past nine runnings. Counting all of the event’s WRC-era results, its 11th win moved the Japanese marque one ahead of Ford as the most successful manufacturer on the championship’s Finnish round.

Pajari had inherited the lead on Saturday afternoon when teammate and long-time pacesetter Sebastien Ogier crashed heavily on the super-fast Vastila 2 stage. Reigning WRC champ Ogier and his stand-in co-driver, Julien Ingrassia, exited their wrecked GR Yaris unaided and underwent precautionary hospital examinations, the results of which showed no significant injuries.

Solberg underlined his speed by winning Sunday’s opening pass of Himos-Jamsa and topping the Super Sunday classification, despite suffering severe back pain following a heavy landing. The Swede received pain relief before the final stage and still matched Evans’ stage time to within thousandths of a second.

His runner-up result completed a second successive Toyota one-two, with Pajari and Solberg finishing in the same order in Estonia.

Evans secured an unlikely third place after his own dramatic Saturday roll. Spectators manhandled his heavily damaged GR Yaris back on the road before Toyota’s mechanics completed extensive repairs during midday service.

The points leader rewarded their efforts by winning Sunday’s Wolf Power Stage, edging out Solberg by just 0.025s, and finished the rally 1m9.5s behind Pajari.

“It was a surreal set of circumstances,” Evans reflected. “More than anything, we owe thanks to the guys who fixed the car yesterday lunchtime. We always know we can depend on those guys.”

WRC points leader Elfyn Evans exits Finland in a far better position than he might have expected. He rolled his Toyota GR Yaris on Saturday, but made it back to the podium.

Evans’ recovery bolstered his championship lead to 30 points, albeit now over Pajari, with the previous second-placed contender, Takamoto Katsuta, dropping to third in the overall standings. Solberg consolidated fourth in the title chase, ahead of the non-scoring Ogier, in a Toyota 1-2-3-4-5 at the top of the table.

Behind Toyota’s Finnish podium lockout, Adrien Fourmaux finished fourth overall for Hyundai after Friday’s torrential rain had wrecked the Frenchman’s early victory challenge. The i20 N Rally1 driver pushed on the Sunday finale, but still ended 16.4s behind Evans.

Neuville’s teammate, Thierry Neuville, climbed to fifth when Katsuta went off on the Wolf Power Stage. The Japanese driver reached the finish with heavy front-end damage after hitting a tree and slipped to sixth, while Josh McErlean brought his M-Sport Ford Puma Rally1 home in seventh.

In WRC2, the second tier of international rallying, a 30-second time penalty cost Teemu Suninen a class win on his home event, leaving Estonia’s Robert Virves to celebrate his fourth win from as many starts in the category this season.

Toyota’s WRC team principal, Jari-Matti Latvala, finished ahead of both drivers in his Rally2-spec GR Yaris, but with the 18-time WRC event winner choosing not to chase points in his now-traditional one-off start on home gravel, the Suninen-Virves duel was the one that mattered in the overall title picture.

Suninen appeared on course for victory in his GR Yaris Rally2 when he went 4.6s quicker than Virves on the opening pass through Himos-Jamsa, extending his class lead to 7.7s.

However, a stewards’ decision issued ahead of the Wolf Power Stage revealed that Suninen had been handed the time penalty. The Finn and his co-driver, Janni Hussi, were the first competing crew to arrive at the scene after Patrick Enok rolled off the road on Saturday morning’s opening stage, but did not stop – hence the retrospectively applied chunk of added time.

The decision resulted in a subdued celebration for Virves, whose focus had switched to securing second place after a tire issue for his Skoda Fabia RS on Saturday’s penultimate stage dropped him out of the lead.

“A very strange feeling. I do not know what to say,” admitted Virves at the end of the Wolf Power Stage. “We struggled a lot and the others had issues, but I am very happy to be here. Even if it ended this way, I have to take it.”

Victory moved Virves to the top of the WRC2 standings, 21 points clear of Finland’s Roope Korhonen, whose home rally ended with a roll on Saturday while he was fighting at the front.

Estonian Robert Virves’ 2026 WRC2 tally now reads four starts and four wins. The Skoda driver’s Finnish success came after a late penalty for class rival Teemu Suninen. Red Bull Content Pool

The WRC now takes a short break before returning for a South American doubleheader that takes in Rally del Paraguay, Aug. 27-30, and Rally Chile, Sept. 10-13. The all-gravel events might not match Rally Finland for sheer outrageous pace, but they’ll still provide a stiff test for the WRC crews as the 2026 title battle heads for the home stretch.

WRC Rally Finland, final positions after Sunday/Leg Three, SS20
1 Sami Pajari/Marko Salminen (Toyota GR Yaris Rally1) 2h27m58.0s
2 Oliver Solberg/Elliott Edmondson (Toyota GR Yaris Rally1) +26.7s
3 Elfyn Evans/Scott Martin (Toyota GR Yaris Rally1) +1m19.5s
4 Adrien Fourmaux/Alexandre Coria (Hyundai i20 N Rally1) +1m35.9s
5 Thierry Neuville/Martijn Wydaeghe (Hyundai i20 N Rally1) +3m52.5s
6 Takamoto Katsuta/Aaron Johnston (Toyota GR Yaris Rally1) +4m18.2s
7 Josh McErlean/Eoin Treacy (Ford Puma Rally1) +4m32.7s
8 Jari-Matti Latvala/Juho Hanninen (Toyota GR Yaris Rally2 – WRC2, non-points) +8m25.5s
9 Robert Virves/Jakko Viilo (Skoda Fabia RS – WRC2 winner) +8m46.9s
10 Teemu Suninen/Janni Hussi (Toyota GR Yaris Rally 2 – WRC2) +9m03.0s

WRC Drivers’ Championship after 10 of 14 rounds
1 Evans 201 points
2 Pajari 171
3 Katsuta 160
4 Solberg 156
5 Sebastien Ogier 139
6 Fourmaux 129  

WRC Manufacturers’ Championship after 10 of 14 rounds
1 Toyota Gazoo Racing WRT 514 points   
2 Hyundai Word Rally Team 340 
3 Toyota Gazoo Racing WRT2 184
4  M-Sport Ford 130 

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