Oliver Solberg insists his World Rally Championship title bid remains unaffected by his retirement from second place at last week’s Rally Islas Canarias.
Solberg led the championship after victory at the opening round in Monte Carlo, but has slipped back since – especially with an alternator-related retirement from the lead in Kenya, a first stage crash in Croatia and now a penultimate stage accident in Gran Canaria.
The 24-year-old was 2.2 seconds behind Sébastien Ogier and set to outscore Elfyn Evans, Takamoto Katsuta and Sami Pajari before he went too fast over a jump and hit the Armco barrier, which dislodged his Toyota’s front-left wheel.
While Solberg acknowledged his zero-point score at round five “doesn’t put me in a better position”, he believes his shot is “far from over”. He’s currently 33 points behind leader Evans.
He told DirtFish: “After Croatia the goal was to build up step by step and it looked very good the whole weekend, fantastic speed the whole weekend the first time really on proper Tarmac with the car and yeah, just a small misjudgement over that small jump.
“For sure it’s far from over – you have to try to reset in these moments to really look forward to Portugal and look forward to many more rallies to come. From that aspect, I haven’t thought too much that it’s a long shot, but it doesn’t put me in a better position that’s for sure.
“I just need to keep pushing, keep working and improve.”
Solberg survived wild moments in both Monte Carlo and Sweden before accidents in Croatia and Canarias, but doesn’t plan to radically change his approach.
“Approach we won’t change,” he said. “I think this weekend has shown good speed, consistency and fighting with the best guy in the world [Ogier] is not easy when we can see our speed compared to everyone else.
“I just need to learn from the small mistake and understand that I probably don’t have so much experience on this level with this car against the guys. Just need to do better next time.”
