Rallying-Toyota's Pajari heading for victory in Estonia

Rallying-Toyota's Pajari heading for victory in Estonia

The Star Online - Sport·2026-07-19 08:00

July 18 (Reuters) - Toyota's Sami ⁠Pajari was heading for his first World Rally ⁠Championship (WRC) win after finishing Saturday's penultimate leg of ‌Rally Estonia with a 25-second lead over teammate Oliver Solberg.

Hyundai's Adrien Fourmaux was in third place, the order unchanged from Friday.

"It’s not easy, ​it’s never meant to be easy, ⁠but still we are ⁠somehow quite comfortable with the lead," said Pajari.

The Finn started ⁠the ‌day with a 14.7-second advantage over his Swedish rival and extended that with two immediate stage ⁠wins adding to Friday's seven in a ​row.

Solberg won 10, ‌11 and 16 but Pajari also won stages ⁠12, 13 and ​14.

Hyundai's Thierry Neuville was in fourth place, a mere 1.9 seconds behind Frenchman Fourmaux with two stages remaining on ⁠Sunday, after winning stage 15.

Toyota's reigning world ​champion Sebastien Ogier was in fifth place, 30.1 seconds ahead of championship-leading teammate Elfyn Evans in sixth.

"With a slightly better ⁠road position than yesterday, we had a good feeling behind the wheel and were able to gain back some positions, which was the main target," said Welshman Evans.

"We ​then used the afternoon to experiment ⁠with a few different setups, which maybe didn’t go ​in the direction that we had ‌hoped, but at least we have ​a solid base to fall back on for tomorrow."

(Reporting by Alan Baldwin, editing by Ed Osmond)

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