WRC 2026 Rd.10 Day 3 | 2026 | PRESS RELEASE | WRC

Rally Finland: Day 3 Pajari takes over the lead for TGR-WRT

2026.08.01 (Sat)

Sami Pajari took over the lead of Rally Finland for TOYOTA GAZOO Racing World Rally Team at the end of an eventful Saturday.

The day’s route took in two loops of four fast forest stages to the south west of the Jyväskylä service park. Sébastien Ogier began the day in the rally lead by 16.3 seconds over team-mate Elfyn Evans. Evans won the morning’s first stage and gradually reduced the gap to 11.6s before he rolled near the end of the fourth and final stage of the loop.

With the help of spectators, Evans managed to return to the road and complete the stage 1m49s down on Ogier, who now led by 22.7s over Pajari. Pajari and Ogier went on to win one stage each at the start of the afternoon, with the overall difference remaining in Ogier’s favour at 20.9s.

In SS17, Ogier went off the road in a fast left-right sequence of corners. He and co-driver Julien Ingrassia were both able to get themselves out of the car unaided and without serious injury. They were transferred to hospital for further examinations, the results of which were positive. Due to the heavy impact during the accident, the crew will remain in hospital under observation overnight.

Pajari therefore completed the day in the lead of his home rally by 46.4s ahead of team-mate Oliver Solberg.

After the team managed to repair the damage to Evans’ car during mid-day service, he performed strongly in the afternoon to move back up to third overall, 49.9s behind Solberg and 3.8s ahead of Adrien Fourmaux (Hyundai). Takamoto Katsuta rounds out the top five.

Team Principal Jari-Matti Latvala has taken the lead of his category in eighth overall. He is 10.3s ahead of fellow GR Yaris Rally2 driver Teemu Suninen, who leads WRC2 with Latvala not nominated to score points. Jaspar Vaher is the best placed driver from the TGR WRC Challenge Program in fourth in WRC2 after Yuki Yamamoto spun out in SS13.

Quotes:
Juha Kankkunen (Deputy Team Principal)
“It has been a very eventful day today. The most important thing is that I have spoken with Seb and Julien and they are both OK and nothing is broken. We need to check the data to understand what happened, because it would be unlike Seb to go off in a place like that; he was doing a fantastic job controlling the rally and wasn’t having to push too hard. Elfyn made a small mistake this morning but the damage looked worse than it was and the team did an incredible job to get him back out this afternoon, when he and the car were clearly very fast. Sami meanwhile has been doing a very good job once again and he just needs to keep driving with his own rhythm tomorrow.”

Elfyn Evans (Driver car 33)
“Today started pretty well with a good feeling in the car. Unfortunately we got caught out in the last stage of the morning, running a bit wide into a ditch and rolling multiple times. A huge thanks to the team who did an incredible job to put the car right in service; it was brilliant all afternoon and that allowed us to fight and gain back positions. The main target was fourth, and that became third after what happened to Seb and Julien; I want to wish all the best to them this evening. Tomorrow we’ll be trying our best like always.”

Oliver Solberg (Driver car 99)
“My feeling was good in the first stage this morning, but I had some issues hearing my pacenotes in the next one. The gap to those in front became a bit too big and I didn’t want to take too much risk, so the plan was to try and preserve our position and see what happens. Then Elfyn had his roll and later Seb and Julien went off – I’m glad that they are both OK. Tomorrow will be a new day and a new fight and we’ll do the best we can to secure some valuable points.”

Takamoto Katsuta (Driver car 18)
“Today’s stages were very challenging and you needed big commitment and confidence. After the time lost yesterday, our main focus was on trying some different things with the car setup. It’s hard to find a big step forward, but the times in the afternoon were not too bad. Hopefully what we found can work well tomorrow and we’ll try to get some more points. I feel sorry for what happened to Seb and Julien and I’m glad to hear they are OK.”

Sami Pajari (Driver car 5)
“It has been a crazy day with a lot of different things happening, and suddenly we find ourselves in the lead tonight. The morning was really enjoyable; I was having maybe the best time that I’ve ever had behind the wheel of a rally car, driving these beautiful stages with the best car in the world. After Elfyn’s roll we moved up to second and thought the gap to Seb was too much to catch, so I just tried to keep enjoying and keep some flow in my driving. Then Seb went off, and the most important thing is that both he and Julien are OK. It shows that things can change very quickly and we still have two stages to do tomorrow, so nothing is decided yet.”

End of day three (Saturday):
1 Sami Pajari/Marko Salminen (Toyota GR YARIS Rally1) 2h00m38.0s
2 Oliver Solberg/Elliott Edmondson (Toyota GR YARIS Rally1) +46.4s
3 Elfyn Evans/Scott Martin (Toyota GR YARIS Rally1) +1m36.3s
4 Adrien Fourmaux/Alexandre Coria (Hyundai i20 N Rally1) +1m40.1s
5 Takamoto Katsuta/Aaron Johnston (Toyota GR YARIS Rally1) +2m54.5s
6 Thierry Neuville/Martijn Wydaeghe (Hyundai i20 N Rally1) +3m52.9s
7 Josh McErlean/Eoin Treacy (Ford Puma Rally1) +3m54.4s
8 Jari-Matti Latvala/Juho Hänninen (Toyota GR Yaris Rally2) +6m50.8s
9 Teemu Suninen/Janni Hussi (Toyota GR Yaris Rally2) +7m01.1s
10 Robert Virves/Jakko Viilo (Škoda Fabia RS Rally2) +7m04.2s
Retired Sébastien Ogier/Julien Ingrassia (Toyota GR YARIS Rally1)
(Results as of 21:00 on Saturday, for the latest results please visit www.wrc.com)

What's next?
The rally finishes on Sunday with two passes of a new-look Himos-Jämsa stage – the longest of the rally at 30.02 kilometres. The second run through serves as the rally-ending Power Stage with up to five bonus points available for the fastest drivers, plus five more for the quickest across the day.