Last week, Pajari and his co-driver Enni Mälkönen drove to a third-place finish in the Rally2 on the Croatian tarmac, piloting Toyota’s new Rally2 car. Although the new car from the Japanese manufacturer has proven competitive, tuning a new rally car always presents its own set of challenges.
How much does it complicate matters when each rally is essentially a new race for the car, requiring the right adjustments?
“It complicates things quite a bit at this stage. Before this, Monte Carlo was the only tarmac rally I had driven with this car. Here, we were looking for something quite different compared to that, and it was successful,” Pajari summarized to RallyJournal.com.
“At this point, we are still trying out a lot of things and trying to come up with good solutions. On the other hand, now that we are heading to the next similar rally, at least there is a good foundation already.”
Next, Pajari will compete in the demanding gravel rally in Portugal in a couple of weeks. Before the weekend in Croatia, he had only one day of testing on gravel, but this week he added another.
“It’s a nice event. I’ve driven on gravel for one day so far and the car felt good there. We’ll try to keep up the same pace,” Pajari thought.
The WRC season continues on gravel until the Central European Rally in October. Pajari aims for at least a podium finish in every event, and victories would not be unwelcome.
“I should at least get podium finishes on gravel. I won’t be satisfied with less.”
The competition in the Rally de Portugal will be even tougher or at least more extensive. Just among the Finns, Pajari will face Teemu Suninen, Lauri Joona, and Roope Korhonen. Also lining up are Pierre-Louis Loubet, Kris Meeke, Gus Greensmith, and Oliver Solberg.
“The level there is really tough. Looking back, it would have been easier to score points in Croatia,” Pajari chuckled.
“There may be a few more names fighting at the top. Still, I don’t think the pace there will be any tougher. Even in Croatia, the lead was going at maximum speed. I don’t believe that even if we had Meeke and the others here, the level would have been much higher.”
