Sunday, October 4, 2026, will forever be the day Oliver Solberg wishes to forget.
But one month on from his heartbreaking World Rally Championship title miss, the Swede acknowledges the penultimate corner of the season isn’t where he lost the championship.
Solberg started the Sardinia powerstage in a winner-takes-all shootout with Toyota team-mate, and eventual world champion, Elfyn Evans and had been ahead on the splits, before he lost the rear of his GR Yaris Rally1, went off the road and lost the 2026 title by five points.
He still, however, won the event.
Unveiled as a Toyota Racing driver on Tuesday – driving a GR Celica Rally1 – DirtFish asked Solberg how the last month has been since coming so close to world rallying’s biggest prize.
“It’s been good,” Solberg said. “In my heart, for sure, it always hurts a little bit, because it’s the closest thing to the biggest dream you can have in your body. It’s been my biggest dream since childhood, and it is my only dream.
“So for sure it hurts, but I think still with some reflection, some time to look back and look at the whole picture, I probably didn’t lose the championship in the last 150 meters. I probably lost it earlier in the season.
“I’ve been very proud still of my season. Everything that’s been going on, you know, it started great. There’s been some lows, getting out of those lows in a very strong way, putting in very strong results, consistency towards the second half of the year and learning probably how to build the championship, learning patience and it’s just been a big learning curve.
“I had bad luck also through the season. Cutting [the season] a rally short, all these kind of things. It’s just been everything to take in at once, you know, and it’s been a great learning curve for the future, I think.”
Solberg won the season-opening Monte Carlo Rally, his second Rally1 start for Toyota after a one-off appearance in Estonia 2025 which he also won.
The 25-year-old’s speed was therefore never in doubt, but a few too many mistakes – especially in Croatia, Gran Canaria, Japan and Greece – undid his momentum.
“It started great and I probably didn’t have the patience enough to take a step back – I just wanted to win everything and I felt that I probably could, but maybe didn’t have the experience enough to do it and should have just taken a step back,” Solberg admitted.
“After Greece, we did a great job as a team, everyone around me, with Tom [Fowler], Kai [Lindström], Jarmo [Lehtinen], everyone, and of course also Akio [Toyoda] believing in it and saying, you know, ‘Hey, let’s take a step back, build, rebuild, and you’re going to come back stronger and you’re going to win rallies again. No question’.
“And then exactly what we did, you know, building back the consistency, getting podiums, and then winning rallies and showing the amazing speed that we really wanted to do at the end.”
Solberg hasn’t had any problem putting what happened in Sardinia behind him.
“I even put my car sign, my plate up on the wall. So I’m just incredibly proud to be honest,” he said.
“When it comes to certain mistakes that I can explain, I probably struggle more to live with it. But when it comes to this one, I literally can’t explain what happened. It came as much of a surprise for me in the car as it did for everyone else in the world.
“There was a hole on the outside there and it dug my rear wheel in and spun me around and I think that caught me by surprise and obviously the whole world also. So it’s just part of it. It was not meant to be but I did my best and it almost worked.
“I’m OK with it. As long as I didn’t lose on time, I could live with it. And Elfyn deserves it more than anyone after all these years. So I can look at it like that. It’s no problem.”
Solberg, who smiled that his title failure was “iconic”, has received countless messages of support from people across all sports.
“I think that’s what got through me also. It’s just been the support. There were no negative comments. There was nothing bad. Everyone was just proud, thought it was awesome.
“I’ve had messages from NASCAR drivers, Formula 1 drivers, every sport around the world, even… not motorsports, you know, supporting so much and be like, they’ve never been so excited to follow something. They’ve never seen rallies in their life and they’re following now for the first time and are like, ‘This is the coolest thing ever’.
“So I think it did create some hype and I think it’s awesome to get all that support and really see that respect between drivers. There were no one who was like, ‘Ah, yeah, you threw it away. No, you tried’. And that’s… you know, that’s it.
“I didn’t lose it. I almost gave it away. That’s what people are saying. But again, as I said, Elfyn deserves it maximum. So I think just the support for me and Elfyn has been amazing for the sport as a whole.”
