Oliver Solberg, Elfyn Evans and now Takamoto Katsuta have grabbed World Rally Championship headlines with victories this year, but Toyota’s other young driver Sami Pajari is fast becoming its next star.
Right now, Toyota has an embarrassment of riches within its WRC driver roster. All five of its drivers, Evans, Solberg, Katsuta, Pajari and part-timer and reigning world champion Sebastien Ogier, have either tasted victory or visited the podium in the first three events of the season.
New signing Solberg lit up the WRC courtesy of a stunning run to victory in Monte Carlo in January. Evans showed his class to claim victory at Rally Sweden, while Katsuta emerged from a brutal Safari Rally Kenya to clinch a memorable maiden WRC win.
Behind those headlines, Pajari has been making strides, now competing in only his second full season as a full-time factory Rally1 driver. Although overlooked for a seat in Toyota’s main Rally1 team following the arrival of 2025 WRC2 champion Solberg to the Toyota fold in the off-season, Pajari has been delivering impressive results that cannot be underestimated.
While a maiden victory still eludes the Finn, Pajari has finished inside the top seven (three podiums) on nine occasions across the last 10 WRC events – and he even challenged for the outright win in last year’s Saudi Arabia finale.
Earlier this month, Pajari produced arguably his best drive to date, finishing third in the brutal Safari Rally Kenya, which came off the back of a morale-boosting run to third in Sweden after retiring from the Monte Carlo season opener.
Sami Pajari was on the podium for Toyota in Sweden
Photo by: Toyota Racing
In Kenya, Pajari notched up five stage wins during the rally and was only beaten on the stage win tally by two-time Safari winner Ogier, who netted seven fastest times. Pajari’s pace in Kenya even attracted the attention of his more experienced Toyota team-mates, who were keen to watch the Finn’s onboard videos for tips.
“It is nice to see that some people are taking some advice or tips from my driving, so it shows that we are doing something well,” said Pajari.
Performances in Sweden and Kenya have already eclipsed his 2025 stage win tally. After scoring back-to-back WRC podiums for the first time in his career, the 24-year-old is confident he can now take the fight to the WRC’s elite on a regular basis.
“It’s going quite well recently, and I must be super happy for that. At the same time, I still feel there is room to improve and we have finished third three times now so there is two more steps to do and I hope at some point we can claim those places as well,” said Pajari, who was back behind the wheel last week helping Toyota develop its 2027 prototype car in Portugal.
Sami Pajari finished third in Kenya for Toyota Gazoo Racing WRT2
Photo by: Red Bull Content Pool
“This [Safari Rally Kenya] is a really unique rally and of course it is really nice to finish on the podium, but also at the same time we had five stage wins, so it was not only slowly getting through the race, we had some quick pace too. I’m happy from both sides.
“Of course, we are there to fight with anybody and we have taken some stage wins on quite many different types of rallies, and I think we are getting to the place where we can say we can basically fight with anyone in any condition.
“We are there to not only fight with the team-mates but in general it is sport, so we try to do the best we can otherwise we wouldn’t be here.”
After the harsh conditions in Kenya, the unforgiving asphalt roads of Croatia is the next challenge awaiting Pajari next month.
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