It would be easy to reach for the Socrates and Plato analogy of master and student – but the World Rally Championship is more contemporary than ancient Greek philosophy. So, let’s stick with Sébastien Ogier and Oliver Solberg.
When the Swede won Estonia last year, he talked of the help the Frenchman had offered him. Within the team, Ogier actively pushed Solberg’s case for a place alongside him in 2026. And when it worked, when it happened, how did the youngster repay those efforts? By beating Ogier in his own backyard.
Solberg’s Monte Carlo Rally win was, undoubtedly, something special. Yes, fortune favoured him as he turned left and took an unplanned trip to a La Bréole field on the penultimate day, but that victory was one which will be remembered for a very long time. And the 10-time winner was among the first to congratulate the 24-year-old.
That the result would have hurt Ogier is of little doubt. The nine-time world champion is all about winning. But the moment the GR Yaris Rally1 doors were shut, harborside in Monaco on the season’s first Sunday, it was done.
Ogier might've run the figure on his door, but he wasn't number one in Monte Carlo this year
It was all about the team again. And Ogier has evolved as the consummate team player – something that enormously appreciated by the Japanese manufacturer.
“It’s great for Oliver [Solberg] to have someone like Séb [Ogier],” said Toyota’s technical director Tom Fowler. “The same as it’s great for all of us in the team to have somebody like Séb; to hear the questions he wants to ask inside the closed room of debriefs and preparations is something which brings a lot to the whole team.
“For Oliver, specifically at the point that he is in his career, to be alongside someone like Séb is clearly a big advantage for him. And, to be honest in Monte Carlo, when Oliver was leading and looking like he was going to win the rally, you could start to think that that might be the point at which Séb Ogier becomes a little bit less charitable. And I think it’s natural that when you start to get beaten by someone you’ve been helping, it doesn’t feel so fantastic.
“On the other hand, the conditions of Monte Carlo were very, very specific. I think if Monte Carlo had been the conditions of the last few years with lots of nice Tarmac, but questionable sections here and there… that would have been like pure Séb Ogier territory. If Oliver came there and beat him, then probably the amount of help that was coming in the future would be declining.
“But I think the fact that, and I got the feeling in Monte all of the drivers across all the teams had a kind of camaraderie – it was a difficult event that was hard to manage. The fact that Monte was like this, [with such tough conditions] and that was the moment that Oliver beat Séb, certainly keeps the relationship alive.”
Fowler was quick to point out that, even in Ogier’s absence from round two in Sweden, Solberg was still learning from him and those around him in the team.
“I think Oliver did an incredible rally in Monte Carlo,” he said. “He was the driver who went there and grabbed the rally by both hands and some toes and basically went into every stage willing to take risks, willing to push, made some mistakes and was a little bit lucky here and there going into a field at one point.
“So looking at that in isolation I think you could say that’s the finished product… but is there such a thing as a finished product? I think where we see that, perhaps, he’s not the finished product is when he’s going into Sweden and realizing quite quickly what the likes of Séb Ogier have done in the past to open the road – and what Elfyn [Evans] did last year to open the road. In Sweden, in the wrong conditions, it’s very problematic and he was in a position on day one that would be really difficult for him to win Sweden rally.
“He showed that he understood this wasn’t going to happen because of the conditions and that he had to drive the best rally he could with the situation he had in order to get the most points, which he did very well. Of course, he did have another incident into a field where he responded in a similar way with a full throttle – which worked remarkably well.
“While he has provided a huge amount of entertainment with these scenes, going into Safari, it would of course be quite wise to now think more about staying in the limits of the road.”
Talking of this week’s Safari, the reigning world champion is back in Kenya for the first time since 2023. His record on an event he’s started just three times? Two wins. Always the master…
