What do you do when your car is calling you? You answer it. And, if you’re Petter Solberg, you take it to the European Rally Championship. To Royal Rally of Scandinavia.
Petter’s back. The comeback is on. (At least for one round of the ERC.)
The 2003 World Rally Champion said: “It was calling me… every time I was in the workshop, the car was telling me to use it! You can’t ignore that.
“You know me, you know this family – rallying is everything to us. Last year I took my mother for a ride in my Citroën C4 WRC on one stage of Royal Rally. That was nice, but Oliver was having all the fun and winning the rally.
Oliver Solberg made his dad jealous by winning the inaugural Royal Rally of Scandinavia last year
“I want to have some of that fun. The rally is really close for us, we have a lot of friends and family close by and, of course, we have Monster Energy, Pirelli and Castrol coming with us. We take the [Volkswagen] Polo and we do this together.”
It’s Rocky VI.
“It’s like this,” laughed Petter. “I am Rocky coming back! I remember this film, it was a good fight, but Rocky didn’t win in the end…
“No, seriously, like I said, this is to enjoy. The priority is to drive the car – the first ever Polo R5 made, chassis number one – to make the smiles and to give something to the rally fans coming from Norway and for those people watching the ERC from around the world.
“Last year we worked hard to help the organizers to build this event up and this is the same. Like always, we do everything we can to build rallying up some more.
“I don’t go there trying to win, it’s for the show and to enjoy the driving. We know there are a lot of very fast drivers in ERC – it’s one hell of a competition. It will be tough. It’s five years since I did Rally GB (winning WRC2 and finishing 10th overall), nothing since then. The speed is incredible in the championship and you can’t just switch it back on.
“I have Jonas [Andersson] co-driving for me, this is something nice. We live close by together, but we didn’t compete [together] before. I am really looking forward to this, being back in the car is something special.
“Look at Carlos [Sainz], he is incredible to be winning Dakar and doing what he is doing. He was my team-mate in 1999, and a big and special person for me in my career and still he is like an inspiration.
“I’m so excited. Tell them, the comeback is on!”
The Bauhaus Royal Rally of Scandinavia is based out of Karlstad and runs from June 13-15.
