Oliver Solberg has crashed out of Croatia Rally on Saturday’s opening stage, leading to it being canceled.
The Hyundai driver went into the day fifth overall, having had a productive day on Friday, leaving him 2m38.5s off the rally lead.
But he never made it through the first test this morning, crashing 2.4 miles into the Kostanjevac – Petruš Vrh test.
Details on the accident are currently limited, but Hyundai has confirmed that both Solberg and his co-driver Eliot Edmondson are OK. The car had been since the crash on fire.
Five drivers had made it through to finish the eighth stage of the rally so far, with Toyota’s Elfyn Evans currently the fastest driver through the 14.76-mile test, 3.8s quicker than the returning Esapekka Lappi who retired on day one.
THE LAST TIME THERE WAS SUCH A DOMINANT WRC FRIDAY
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But the big names unable to start the stage were Kalle Rovanperä and Ott Tänak.
Theirry Neuville was the last driver to complete the test. He was third fastest through, 4.6s off Evans, but he also picked up an additional 10s penalty for a service infringement this morning.
That’s on top of the one-minute penalty he received last night for excessive speeding on public roads.
Neuville did come across Solberg’s car on the stage, but he had limited information.
“I saw a car, but I didn’t see who it was. It was in a fast place,” Neuville said when asked if he had seen Solberg.
The remaining cars are being allowed to drive through SS9 at a safe speed, so that they can then head straight to SS10.
SS9 times
1 Elfyn Evans/Scott Martin (Toyota) 13m39.8s
2 Esapekka Lappi/Janne Ferm (Toyota) +3.8s
3 Thierry Neuville/Martijn Wydaeghe (Hyundai) +4.6s
4 Pierre-Louis Loubet/Vincent Landais (M-Sport Ford) +5.6s
5 Takamoto Katsuta/Aaron Johnston (Toyota) +16.3s
6 Gus Greensmith/Jonas Andersson (M-Sport Ford) +18.7s
Leading positions after SS9
1 Neuville/Wydaeghe (Hyundai) 1h31m33.9s
2 Evans/Martin (Toyota) +30.5s
3 Katsuta/Johnston (Toyota) +1m25.7s
4 Greensmith/Andersson (M-Sport Ford) +11m14.2s
5 Loubet/Landais (M-Sport Ford) +1ho3mo5.8s
6 Lappi/Ferm (Toyota) +1h17m39.8s
