The 23-year-old belied his lack of experience to set a succession of top-three category stage times in a Ford Fiesta Rally4 – one week after he won the RC3 class on Rallye Weiz in Austria, the second event on the FIA Rally Star Training Season schedule.

Jürgenson qualified for the FIA Rally Star programme by winning the European Final in January 2022. He’s now one of six young talents enrolled in the initiative, which aims to find a future FIA World Rally Championship title winner.

Keen to build his experience and also demonstrate his potential on home soil, Jürgenson was able to attract additional support to contest the Tartu-based Rally Estonia, a separate event to his FIA Rally Star Training Season campaign.

“Two or three years ago I was just myself in the crowd looking at all the drivers that were on the main stage at the start in Tartu,” said Jürgenson, who went to university in the city. “On Thursday night I got to be part of that when I did the Meet the Crews live on TV and that’s basically thanks to the FIA and the FIA Rally Star programme, because without the programme I wouldn’t be here.

“I drove with my own car on Rally Estonia having just come from Rallye Weiz in Austria where we won our class in our Ford Fiesta Rally3. Now on gravel it’s a completely new story with the Rally4 car because I had never driven it on gravel. I had to get up to speed and be as fast as the other guys, but we did it.

“All the sponsors I gathered for this rally came because of the FIA Rally Star programme and that I have potentially three or four years of driving in the rally scene. I am very thankful.”

Rally Nova Gorica, a Tarmac event in Slovenia, is next up on the FIA Rally Star Training Season schedule from September 22-24.