Oliver Solberg arrived at the end of Rally Estonia’s second stage to the news he’d won his first World Rally Championship – and in commanding fashion. There were tears of joy, of relief, of satisfaction.
After ending the first proper day of Estonian action atop the leaderboard, 12.4s ahead of Ott Tänak and with three stage wins to his name, Solberg is still processing how radically his career trajectory has changed in only 24 hours.
“I’m still emotional,” Solberg told DirtFish. “It’s been such a great comeback and a great feeling and just had so much fun.
“What a day. I’m speechless. I don’t know what to say.”
After some further questioning from DirtFish, he was able to dive deeper into an extraordinary second day behind the wheel of a Toyota GR Yaris Rally1 in competition.
Solberg won three of Friday's seven stages to lead overnight by 12.5s
The question we’re all now be wondering is: can he continue that rapid pace on Saturday, or will his more experienced rivals begin to catch him?
Solberg won the second pass of the Kambja stage, declaring he’d try to up his speed after seeing Tänak pushing hard on the live TV pictures as he waited his turn to start. But he suggested he was less comfortable with the afternoon loop’s roads than the morning, a style of stage which will be more prevalent on Saturday.
“You have to drive and get the feeling,” said Solberg. “And the stages in the afternoon was a completely different kind of surface. I struggled a bit with the feeling.[It was] not the same as in the morning.
“There’s still so much more to learn to go faster, and I can go faster, but I don’t have the experience to go faster yet. But I feel I can do much more, and the potential in the car and me to do it together can be great.
“At the moment I don’t want to do more, I don’t need to do more, and I don’t have the experience to do more, so I’ll just try to continue in the same way.”
Though he was tempted into seeing whether he could match Tänak on stage seven, Solberg suggested he wouldn’t be focusing on resisting a charge from the 2019 world champion.
Will these two names still top the leaderboard tomorrow night?
Tänak started second on the road for Friday’s stages and, like championship leader Elfyn Evans, suffered a cleaning effect during the morning loop. On Saturday he’ll start only one place ahead of Solberg instead of five.
“I do my thing and that’s it,” said Solberg. “Ott Tänak is Ott Tänak. He has a bit more experience and especially on these roads tomorrow.
“I’m happy with my speed at the moment. I’ll keep doing what I’m doing.”
Adrien Fourmaux was the only other driver to best Solberg on a gravel stage during Friday’s action in Estonia, winning the first pass of Kambja. Like most rally fans, he was curious to see how equalized road order would shift the dynamic on Saturday.
“Tomorrow, Tänak will have nearly the same road position than him,” said Fourmaux. “So we’ll see more tomorrow.”
