Jari-Matti Latvala delivered a verdict that was equal parts good and bad news for Oliver Solberg.
During Secto Rally Finland, Toyota’s team principal declared Solberg was ready for the big time again. But the caveat was that it wouldn’t be with his team – no room at the inn, especially with Sami Pajari seemingly already its next young driver being readied for promotion.
Whether Solberg ends up clinching the WRC2 title or not, it’s clear that the one-time Hyundai factory driver is now the benchmark of the WRC’s second tier. He would, surely, be the prime candidate to move up a level in the factory ranks once more.
But motorsport doesn’t work that way. Solberg still has plenty of barriers to navigate before he can set foot in a Rally1 car again. What are the obstacles – and how can he remedy them?
The past
Everything looked rosey at the top of 2022. In Hyundai Motorsport’s own words: “Oliver is one of the most exciting young talents in the world of rallying.”
He would be sharing the third i20 N Rally1 with Dani Sordo through the 2022 season. After scrapping with Sébastien Ogier on his debut at the highest level at Arctic Rally Finland a year earlier, Solberg drove a Hyundai-sourced, 2C-run i20 Coupe WRC on three more world rounds in 2021. Ending the year with a solid fifth in Monza, the feeling was very much that he’d earned the opportunity coming his way.
This was it, the springboard prepared. He was all set for take-off.
Cue what will always be one of the toughest seasons of his career. Let’s face it, 2022 wasn’t ideal for anybody at Hyundai. The car was late to the party and even deputy team director Julien Moncet reached the end of round one admitting his team had been fortunate to get cars to the start.
Solberg's first Rally1 spell ended prematurely
Solberg is professional enough to only remember the highlights, the fourth in Ypres and fifth in New Zealand. He’s not interested in raking over what went on behind closed doors.
His team-mates and colleagues readily recall the way the season played out for the then 20-year-old. It wasn’t pretty and, in this case, it would be fair to assume all that glittered was not gold. A change of direction towards a more experienced squad for 2023 left no room for Solberg, with plenty in the team still convinced this was a missed opportunity to develop a driver who would, in their eyes, have been challenging for this year’s world championship had he remained in the Frankfurt fold.
Marketing incompatibility
Motorsport requires money. That’s the cold, hard truth. Latvala has ruled Toyota out as a potential suitor, which leaves a Hyundai return or M-Sport. The latter will happily hire a talented youngster with cash to pay for their ride.
But there’s one caveat: the cash can’t come from certain places. Especially not a place that directly conflicts with the team’s primary sponsor.
Monster Energy is one of Solberg's primary backers - a clear clash with M-Sport's Red Bull deal
Giants of the energy drink market, who fight tooth and nail over the same customer base by pouring resource into the same sports, are on opposing sides of that Solberg/M-Sport equation.
Imagine strolling through the service park, looking over at the M-Sport service bays and seeing a Red Bull car parked next to a Monster car, within the same team space. Someone somewhere in a marketing department would have more than a raised eyebrow at the sight.
You might argue that if M-Sport was acting purely as a preparation firm for some sort of Solberg-branded team, then this problem would go away. But the proximity factor remains – it’s still identifiably an M-Sport Ford car, parked next to the others. Would M-Sport run an entirely separate service area, well away from its main team? That seems unlikely considering the horrendous inefficiencies it would lead to.
While Solberg would be an ideal candidate from M-Sport purely from a performance and future potential perspective, this commercial incompatibility is near-impossible to resolve. Malcolm Wilson is always first in line to try and snap up young drivers – there is no doubt signing Solberg will at the very least have crossed his mind. If it was a problem that could be solved, it seems reasonable to believe Solberg would already have been driving a Puma this year – Malcolm almost always finds a way.
A lineup with both Solberg and Fourmaux would have been one that M-Sport could build a long-term future around – but with each being sponsored by companies on the opposite side of the same fence, the two are commercially incompatible.
Family involvement
Oliver's parents have been heavily involved in his career, but not so much now
Throughout his career Oliver’s parents Petter and Pernilla have been a firm fixture in the service park. They are the definitive Team Solberg. It’s forever been that way.
From the moment he could walk – and probably a few months before that – Oliver was everywhere in Subaru’s corner, waiting for Petter to arrive with stories of the previous loop of stages. As a toddler, he was regularly found behind the wheel of papa Solberg’s axle-stood Impreza.
Fast forward a decade and a half and roles are reversed. As Oliver conquered crosskarts and moved to rallying, he naturally turned to his world-class (and multiple title-winning) parents to discuss ramp angles, roll-bars and career options. And yes, there was a time when he stepped out of a rally car and talked to Petter before his own engineer.
There was definitely a moment when Team Solberg looked to be a touch too actively involved. It’s different now.
In case you hadn’t noticed, Pernilla is flat chat in her role as WRC Commission president and Petter’s increasingly busy with his own projects. Yes, the pair are still in the service park, but the days of them peering over Oliver’s shoulder are long gone.
Don’t forget, this sport is what the Solbergs do. Type ‘living the sport of rallying’ into your favorite search engine and their picture will appear. They’re immersed in it. Day and night. Does Oliver still rely on his folks in the same fashion? Probably not. He’s knocking on the door of 23 and maturing quickly into a world champion-in-waiting.
Does that mean they shouldn’t be around? Not a bit of it. There are still moments when only parents have the answer and few would argue the senior Solbergs have earned the right to grace the service parks with their presence. The WRC would, in fact, be poorer without them.
Oliver’s interests are looked after by a management company now – a further demonstration that Petter and Pernilla are distancing themselves professionally.
They’ll forever remain Team Solberg, but the Swedish-Norwegian squad has evolved dramatically in the last 12 months. Oliver’s very much his own man – a man who can call on some exceptional experience as and when he needs it.
The driver lifecycle
Timing can make the world of difference. Timing is what allowed Mārtiņš Sesks to suddenly make himself a factor in the driver market – he dominated the ERC’s fast gravel stages the year before Latvia’s WRC debut at the same time WRC Promoter was looking to invest in a young driver stepping up to the top level. He had to follow through – but it was a mixture of graft, skill and timing that afforded him that chance. Without timing, graft and skill are not enough.
Considering Latvala’s comments, Pajari’s ascendancy is bad timing for Solberg. So too is the lack of movement of the current top-line drivers. This presents the possibility of staying put in WRC2 next year and even beyond, even if he does win the championship this season. Solberg’s goal is to become world champion – and realistically he can only do this with a factory car underneath him.
For now only the third Hyundai seat appears to be in play as Latvala appears content with the drivers already in Toyota’s fold.
Solberg’s path to the top may turn into a waiting game.
Right now it seems there isn’t a winning strategy on the board available for Solberg to play. It might be that biding his time and waiting for the pieces to move around is what’s needed to finally return to the top level.
Even if he wraps up the WRC2 title, Rally1 may not beckon for Solberg. Not yet, anyway. But he’s still only 22 years old – mercifully, time remains on his side to find his way there.
