Oliver Solberg’s fourth place in WRC2 at Rally Chile has left his title dream in jeopardy, but Toksport team-mate Gus Greensmith is ready to come to the rescue.
Solberg currently heads the standings on 123 points, 12 points up the road from Yohan Rossel whose win last weekend was vital for his championship hopes.
The Citroën driver remains a threat to Solberg in the title race, but only if he wins the Central European Rally later this month.
Instead, it’s Sami Pajari who poses Solberg the biggest problem. Even second place at the season finale in Japan would be enough for Pajari to usurp Solberg in the championship – a win would be needed for Pajari to claim the crown should Rossel top CER.
However Solberg can count on his fellow Škoda Fabia RS Rally2 driver Greensmith for support, as the Briton will look to deny Pajari full points in Japan.
“Yeah, for sure,” Greensmith told DirtFish.
“I’ll do everything I can in Japan to help Oliver as much as I can. That will be the main focus in Japan for me.”
Greensmith had started the season as a rival of Solberg’s for the championship, and began things well with an incredible victory over him in Safari Rally Kenya – achieved while he felt significantly under the weather.
But a small off from a leading position in Portugal marked the beginning of the end for Greensmith’s challenge as he was a frustrated ninth in Poland, crashed in Finland and bizarrely hit a cow in Greece.
However Chile marked a return to form, as Greensmith was a factor in the lead battle throughout and eventually claimed his first WRC2 podium (in third) since March.
“Yeah, it’s been a good weekend, very, very challenging weekend with the fog and the conditions,” he said.
“So, yeah, it required a bit of experience, but we started to turn things around in Greece before we had the cow incident, but here was definitely much better.
“I really enjoyed myself and, yeah, a podium’s good. We almost got P2 [before that half-spin on the powerstage], but I had to give it a bit of a push on the last one, at least try.”
