Toyota deputy team principal Juha Kankkunen wants Oliver Solberg to “stay on the road this time” after back-to-back crashes in the World Rally Championship.
Solberg led the standings after a round one victory in Monte Carlo, but starts round six in Portugal fourth in the championship and 33 points adrift of series leader Elfyn Evans.
Solberg retired on the opening stage in Croatia after understeering on hard tires he had next-to-no experience on, but salvaged 10 points from the weekend with a maximum Super Sunday score.
But at Rally Islas Canarias two weeks ago, the Swede crashed from second place on the penultimate stage after underestimating a crest and ripping a wheel off against the Armco.
Kankkunen, like many in the service park, has zero doubts over Solberg’s speed but would like to see a clean weekend from his young charge in Portugal.
Asked what his expectations of Solberg were this week, the four-time world champion said: “Try to stay on the road this time, that’s what we are pushing a little bit.
“I mean, he’s fast, there’s no question about that. Just, you know, to stay on the road, he will be OK.”
Solberg himself admitted it’s been a “tough couple of rallies” but is excited to return to his preferred surface of gravel.
“It’s been a couple of tough rallies now, yeah, for sure,” he said. “I mean, the speed has been great on Tarmac, but maybe the speed’s been a bit too high for the experience I have with this car on Tarmac.
“But, you know, we were in the fight, so that’s the most important last time. And, yeah, things happen.
“But at least this time, you know, I’m really excited to be back on gravel. It’s for sure probably my preferable surface. And Portugal is one of the best rallies in the world, you know, so I’m really excited.”
A closer fight with Hyundai?
The i20 N Rally1 is expecting to be closer to the pace in Portugal
Toyota has dominated the 2026 season so far, winning all five of the opening events.
But Hyundai’s challenge is expected to be stronger on gravel, and the Portugal shakedown supported that theory with Thierry Neuville going fastest and Adrien Fourmaux third (and quickest on the opening pass) behind Sami Pajari.
Asked if there could be a closer fight with Hyundai this weekend, Pajari repleid: “In a way, I hope so. It would be nice to have a good competition. But at the same time, of course, I hope our five [cars] are still strong enough that we can keep up with them.
“Anyways, it was only the shakedown, but also for me, the feeling was really, really nice in there. So yeah, tomorrow is the proper start, a few proper stages. But still, tomorrow is only the first day, so it feels like a really long week of running.”
Kankkunen added: “For sure [the competition will be] much tighter. It looks like on the asphalt we are 100%, we are right, and here we will see. But it should be OK.
“Normally if you compare to last year we were all right on gravel as well so I’m really just waiting for tomorrow to get to the proper stages and then we see where we are.
“But for sure the fight will be much closer here than it has been.”
