Oliver Solberg has the sympathy of WRC2 rivals Gus Greensmith and Jan Solans, who both believe he was doomed to retire and lose potential victory at Safari Rally Kenya.
Solberg had been leading WRC2 by 40 seconds after six of the Safari’s 21 stages, but got stuck in a deep section of fech-fech on SS7 – the second pass of the new Camp Moran test.
Seeded as the highest Rally2 car, Solberg was the first in and once beached, couldn’t be freed by a 4×4 truck that was on-site. In the end it took a tractor to extricate his GR Yaris Rally2.
All other cars behind were ushered around Solberg on an alternative route.
Greensmith was the biggest beneficiary, as he went on to win the event as Kajetan Kajetanowicz got suspension damage and Solans crashed in pursuit of him.
Greensmith posted to social media to thank the sportsmanship of his rivals
Asked if the rally was too rough, Greensmith told DirtFish: “I think the only way I can say that it maybe crossed a line a little bit was with Oliver. I think whoever was the first Rally2 car was getting stuck. But that’s the fech fech.
“In terms of roughness elsewhere, I don’t think it’s an issue. It’s what makes Safari Rally really special and drivers have to look at it in a different way. A lot of people call rally drivers the best in the world because we’re adaptable to everything. This is one of the reasons why.”
In a social media post throughout the weekend, Greensmith thanked Solberg’s co-driver (and his former right-hand man) Elliott Edmondson for guiding him around the stricken Toyota, as he was caught in the dust of Fabrizio Zaldivar.
“I would never have seen them,” he said.
Solans, who finished second, told DirtFish: “I have to say that Oliver also proved that Camp Moran was too rough. This was not a stage to do for the Rally2 cars and he paid the price for that and I’m sorry for him because his speed was amazing, but the problem was that the stage was too rough.”
Solberg recovered to finish fifth in WRC2.
He told DirtFish: “When the road is impassable and even the organizer can’t get me out, then for sure maybe it’s not fit… the stage wasn’t fit for R5 in just that place, you know, and they detoured everybody else, different roads.”
He and the Printsport team contemplated asking for time back, but “agreed not to do anything, even maybe if I wanted to”.
“That’s life,” Solberg surmised. “You’ve got to bite the sour apple and then move on.
“To be honest, it’s been a perfect weekend otherwise. I was really looking at quite an easy way to win. No mistakes, no punctures, fast when I have to. It’s been a fantastic rally, really.
“So very bitter in the end that what happened happened. But at least it looks positive for the rest of the year. It looks like we can be consistently fast, so let’s see.”
Solberg leads the WRC2 standings by 10 points over Greensmith and Monte Carlo winner Yohan Rossel.
But he is one of just two drivers (Zaldivar being the other) to have scored points on two events so far.
