An emotional Oliver Solberg has reflected on his rally-ending crash only three miles (4.8km) into the first stage of Croatia Rally, suggesting he may need to “take a small step back”.
Solberg ran wide exiting a medium-speed right-hander and clipped a bank, which spun him off the road and left his Toyota GR Yaris Rally1 beached just beyond the edge of the asphalt.
Leading up to his off Solberg had already been wrestling with his car, managing persistent understeer.
“It’s the first time I tried the hard tire,” Solberg told DirtFish. “It’s a little bit more slippery than I expected and the margins were small, so just had a lot of understeer all the stage really.
“I think the pace was OK in the stage but I just understeered a little bit in this one and touched the rockface, which upset the car into the ditch.
“It’s upsetting.”
Damage to Solberg's car was minimal – his major concern was burning the clutch out trying to drive back onto the road, even with spectators helping to push
He hinted the damage to his car wasn’t extensive enough to have led to retirement on his own – but protecting the car from further damage after time had already been lost was key.
“Maybe [it was possible] to get it out but it was starting to smell a bit burnt and stuff,” said Solberg. “So I didn’t want to destroy anything more, I’d lost so much already so it was no point to continue.”
Fighting to hold back tears, a reflective Solberg hinted he would be considering exercising additional caution as a consequence of the off.
“I just want to do well, you know,” he said.
“Maybe I just need to take a small step back, think about the experience I have in the car and with the tires. That’s it.”
Solberg’s title hopes have been aided by erstwhile rally leader and current championship leader Elfyn Evans going off the road on stage three and retiring, leaving the lead Toyota duo to battle for Sunday points for the second rally in a row.
Evans retired with broken rear suspension in Kenya and Solberg suffered an alternator failure on the Safari – as did Sébastien Ogier, who is not competing in Croatia.
