Oliver Solberg flirted with disaster on Rally Sweden’s third stage, going off into a snowbank and burying the throttle to free his Toyota from the snow.
The incident cost the Swede over 30s by the end of the stage, as he also picked up a front-left puncture in the process.
Solberg had led the rally into Friday before a stall contributed to him falling to second after SS2. He’s now 37.5s off rally leader Elfyn Evans and down in sixth place.
“I went off the road,” Solberg said. “There was so much snow everywhere, I had a big snap with the rear and went off. I somehow got up so I’m lucky in that sense, but I got a puncture in the ditch there. Not good.”
Solberg was far from the only driver to be caught out on SS3 Andersvattnet, as Thierry Neuville got sucked into a snowbank and gave up over a minute as he had to undo his seat belts to clear his windshield.
“I touched the snowbank and it put me slightly in, I had immediately no visibility so I went in the ditch on the other side,” Neuville said. “We had to clean the windscreen to keep going.”
There was yet more drama for M-Sport’s Mãrtiņš Sesks though, who picked up a third puncture in two stages.
Sesks confirmed to DirtFish that he will continue in the rally however, with one of his affected tires not badly damaged.
Evans meanwhile won his second stage in succession to grow his rally lead to 11.5s over Takamoto Katusta. Sami Pajari is third (+18.4) with Esapekka Lappi now the leading Hyundai, 29.0s off the lead and 3.4s ahead of Hyundai team-mate Adrien Fourmaux.
Two rear punctures for Josh McErlean means Jon Armstrong is now the leading M-Sport car, 2.1s ahead of Neuville who is eighth. McErlean is ninth, over two minutes off the lead.
