I bear in mind the primary time I heard about Jaspar Vaher. I used to be on the cellphone within the depths of winter, round Monte Carlo Rally time, calling the newest younger Estonian expertise on the cusp of constructing it correctly onto the World Rally Championship ladder.
Romet Jürgenson had simply gained the FIA Rally Star European continental remaining, bagging a rally program in a Ford Fiesta Rally3 in 2023. A brand new expertise had seemingly come out of nowhere, beating all drivers who’d been hotly tipped to take the large prize. Naturally, I needed to dig deeper. The place had he come from? How did he get right here?
That’s the place Vaher got here in. When Jürgenson’s makes an attempt to maneuver from beginner to nationwide rallying had hit the skids, he’d grow to be a co-driver to pre-teenaged Vaher, he had defined.
One thing about this stood out. A couple of drivers, all a lot older than Vaher, had requested Jürgenson to navigate for them. As an alternative, he’d put his belief in an 11-year-old. Why?
“Instantly once I met him within the folkraces, I noticed that he is aware of the way to drive and the belief comes fairly simply when you understand he has that means and the boldness behind the wheel,” Jürgenson tells DirtFish. “That’s fairly easy.”