Oliver Solberg has been hit with a two-minute time penalty by Safari Rally Kenya stewards for using too many tires throughout the event.
Solberg and co-driver Elliott Edmondson were competing in Kenya purely for experience – not selecting it as one of the rounds to count towards their WRC2 campaign.
They had however been comfortably leading the Rally2 class in their Škoda Fabia Rally2 evo before retiring on Friday when failing to stop and change a puncture led to terminal damage.
Restarting on Saturday, Solberg valiantly fought back to 10th overall and made up seven minutes on eventual category winner Kajetan Kajetanowicz.
However the Swede has now been penalized for using 27 Pirelli tires when regulations only permit the use of 26.
In a stewards hearing it was explained that, after recce, Solberg had elected not to use any hard compound tires, and so returned them to tire supplier Pirelli on Friday.
However one of Solberg’s hard tires had been scanned by a scrutineer during routine tire checks.
Solberg explained that he “assumed that the additional tire which was scanned by the scrutineers was part of the tires they had returned to the supplier, and not counted within the maximum overall quantity of tires permitted for the rally”.
However because the hard tire had been scanned during the weekend, it was deemed to be “either fitted on or installed in the car”.
Solberg was therefore handed a two-minute time penalty.
However despite the punishment, Solberg has actually moved up a position in the overall classification as Thierry Neuville was disqualified from eighth place.
