Sami Pajari has won a World Rally Championship round for the first time, controlling Rally Estonia from the opening morning to the finish and beating Toyota team-mate Oliver Solberg by 19.5 seconds.
The 24-year-old Finn won 12 of the 18 gravel stages across the weekend, and never looked like surrendering a lead he had built on Friday, when he swept every stage run that day. It makes him the sixth different winner of the 2026 season.
"It's something so amazing. Maybe I didn't really realize what I have just done," Pajari said at the finish. "Everybody working at Toyota Gazoo Racing, I'm super, super happy and grateful for you. We knew it was coming, there was no doubt, but now we have done it."
Speaking afterwards, he framed the result less as elation than as the end of a long wait. "The first thought on my mind is maybe just relief. It's something that we have been chasing for a relatively long time, and especially this season, it was really close many times to take the win already," he said.
Pajari was also careful not to oversell the margin. "We won 12 stages out of 18 and in a way it looked like really dominant and maybe in a way it was, but still the differences were not that huge at any point," he said.
"I think I expected him to fight for the win, but maybe not dominate like this. He's been very strong," Solberg said. "I think it's not a surprise to see a Finn winning in Estonia. It's happened before. But still, you shouldn't minimise this kind of performance. It's been very strong, so well done."
Toyota deputy team principal Juha Kankkunen, himself a four-time world champion, singled out the composure rather than the speed. "I'm very proud of this result and this first victory for Sami and Marko," Kankkunen said. "He was very calm from start to finish and did a perfect job; it was very impressive."
Team chairman Akio Toyoda tied the win back to a much darker weekend in January, when Pajari retired from the season-opening Rallye Monte-Carlo. "Congratulations Sami and Marko on your first WRC victory," Toyoda said. "After retiring at the season-opening Rallye Monte-Carlo, I heard that you told the team: 'I want to practice more, even if it's in a Rally2 car.'"
Adrien Fourmaux took third for Hyundai at 53.8s, with team-mate Thierry Neuville fourth. Sebastien Ogier, on a part-season programme, finished fifth and enjoyed the detour more than the result. "It's been a lot of fun to be back here in Estonia this weekend driving these amazing roads and this fantastic event; it was definitely the right decision," Ogier said.
Championship leader Elfyn Evans salvaged sixth from a road-position problem that was effectively decided before he started. "We faced a tough start to the weekend with the stages being so dry and the cleaning effect so clear," Evans said. "Sixth was realistically the most that was possible."
It was still enough. Evans leaves Estonia on 177 points, 25 clear of Takamoto Katsuta, whose Friday retirement cost him heavily. Katsuta was blunt about it: "This weekend did not go the way that we had hoped. It's very frustrating but nothing is over, and we keep going."
Pajari's win lifts him to third in the standings on 144 points, 33 behind Evans with the season's back half still to run. Whether that makes him a title contender or simply a driver who has finally converted his speed is the question the next few rounds will answer — and Pajari is not assuming anything.
Asked whether more wins would follow, he was measured. "I really hope so, but at the same time I know it's not going to be any easier," he said.
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*Originally published on [Motorsports Global](https://motorsports.global/article/pajari-wins-rally-estonia-for-maiden-wrc-victory). Visit for full coverage.*