Oliver Solberg still believes he can win this year’s World Rally Championship, but admitted his Tarmac form has put him in a “hard position”.
The Toyota driver won the season-opening Monte Carlo Rally held in extreme winter conditions, but made day-ending mistakes on the three succeeding Tarmac events.
In Croatia he crashed on the opening stage, but on Rally Islas Canarias he went off during the penultimate test while running in second. He also retired from second place on Rally Japan’s second leg.
Although Solberg scored another podium in Portugal, and has won more stages than any of his rivals, he’s currently 49 points behind his championship-leading team-mate Elfyn Evans at the season’s halfway stage – albeit with a better start position of third for this weekend’s Acropolis Rally Greece.
Asked by DirtFish if he can still become world champion in 2026, Solberg said yes but suggested a safer approach would’ve helped his bid.
“Well, I put myself in a hard position with the Tarmac rallies,” he said. “Of course it’s easy to say now, if I would be more satisfied to get podiums on Tarmac, it would have been a different scenario.
Solberg admits he could've settled for podiums rather than fighting for wins on Tarmac
“But when you’re fighting for the win like that, it’s tricky to just be like: ‘nope, you know what? I’m not going to fight for the win. I’m just going to satisied to be on the podium’.
“I could have had a couple of easy podiums, probably, on Tarmac. But it’s easy to say now. But at least on gravel I have a good feeling. I had some good results. So everything is possible.
“I mean, Elfyn is first on the road [for] many tricky rallies now. I know coming to the summer rallies, I have a good feeling from last year and everything, so I believe everything is possible.
“It’s not crazy far away. I mean, it’s try to take a couple of wins, maybe. I don’t know. Catch a little bit. And then in the end, with two, three rallies to go, everything’s possible.”
Solberg reiterated that his target “has to be” victories, but there won’t be a flat out approach at the Acropolis.
“I think on a rally like this weekend, you can’t think that you’re going to go and win,” he said. “You have to just first do a good job and see where you end up. But then from Greece on, that is flat to the end!”
Explaining the challenges of this weekend, Solberg continued: “You have to be 50% clever and have 50% luck. You saw in Portugal, I had a puncture on Saturday, lost 30 seconds, but luckily it was at the end of the stage. The other guys on Sunday got a puncture and got it at the beginning of the stage and lost a minute and a half. So it’s about when you get it [problems]. And it’s not about if, it’s about when.”
Toyota has dominated the 2026 season so far, winning six of the seven events. But Solberg expects Hyundai’s challenge to be stronger in the second half of the year, which is held entirely on gravel.
“I think we have to fear Hyundai to the end of the season,” he said. “I think they can be very, very strong on gravel. Already in Portugal, very strong performance. Even last year, I mean, the guys I was fighting in Estonia was the Hyundai guys.
“So you have to expect that we’re going to be probably eight guys who can fight for the top. And again, this weekend, it’s not about who can fight the hardest between us. It’s the one who has the least problems at the end, I think, compared to the other rallies.”
