Oliver Solberg admits it “doesn’t look great” for his WRC2 title chances after crashing out of Rally Finland.
Less than two weeks after winning Rally Estonia overall in a Toyota GR Yaris Rally1, Solberg was back in the Rally2 version for the fifth scoring round of his WRC2 campaign.
He was running third on Friday morning, within touch of Jari-Matti Latvala and Emil Lindholm – who enjoyed significantly better road conditions – before an overshoot cost time on the loop’s final stage. That dropped Solberg to seventh, albeit still only 13.7 seconds down on leader Lindholm.
But worse was to come on the second pass of Myhinpää. Solberg’s car hit a rock that had been brought onto the line and was flicked into a ditch at the side of the road. The Yaris pivoted across its nose before coming to rest in the ditch, his day over.
Asked how his emotions contrasted with the highs of Estonia, Solberg told DirtFish: “Completely opposite, I guess. I mean, it would be different if you threw it off the road and you did something silly or whatever, but there’s nothing I could have done in this situation. It’s just one of them, you know?”
Solberg had been struggling to get back comfortable in the Rally2 car with its different driving technique and braking points.
He said: “It’s so different. And if I would go to Greece or somewhere, it’d be fine because everything’s slow anyway.
“But the level is still very high in Rally and you need to have 100% confidence in Finland with everything. And we’ve won here the last couple of years. So I think it just comes down to many things.
“I’ve had some tests but it’s a very long time ago, and we did 400 kilometers in Finland with the Rally1; we haven’t done anything with this car.
“Our test road was terrible. Too quick, too short, and not representative. We had to use the whole shakedown to get prepared, and we had to use today to get prepared.
“Even if we won last week, it doesn’t mean you’re just going to go in and be the best straight away. You still have to be prepared properly like we’ve done all year, and we’ve won everything all year, almost. So preparation is key.
“So a lot of things play in, I think, to why I haven’t maybe found 100% feeling. The times are still OK. We were still there and thereabouts, but it could have been so much better.”
Having only previously dropped points with a fifth-place finish on Safari Rally Kenya, Solberg holds a three-point lead in the WRC2 standings. His closest rival is Yohan Rossel, who is not competing for points on Rally Finland. Gus Greensmith is a further 25 adrift, but is also not scoring points in Finland, and has only contested three scoring events so far.
After narrowly missing out on last year’s title, Solberg said of this year’s chances: “It doesn’t look great, does it? I mean, it’s not meant to be again, I guess it looks like.
“But everything is possible still, for sure. But Africa was not meant to be either, you know, getting stuck in that fesh fesh.
“But something needs to happen for Rossel, of course. Even though [Robert] Virves has been quick, but he’s out of it, the championship.
“Gus, you never know. He’s got a lot of rounds left, but he’s been a bit up and down lately. I think Rossel has a good chance. OK, he has had two bad results as well, so everything is possible.”
