WRC

Rally Sweden – Oliver Solberg cools down the WRC2

With half of the rally completed on Saturday morning, Oliver Solberg has a comfortable lead over his closest rival. Completely in control, the Swede controls events in a competition where the suspense disappears too quickly.

Published on 11/02/2023 à 13:25

Loïc ROCCI

0 View comments)

Rally Sweden – Oliver Solberg cools down the WRC2

Solberg's son Solberg's new generation Skoda Fabia dominates WRC2. © DPPI

Given the quantity of contenders and the quality of the field, a big and beautiful fight was announced in WRC2. No less than 7 crews seemed to be able to aim for victory, but the battle quickly turned in favor of Oliver Solberg (Skoda).

However, everything started well since 8 cars were grouped in 2s6 at the end of SS1 with the astonishing Jari Huttunen in the lead. Operating an 8-year-old “old” Skoda Fabia, he was the first to be surprised. Emil Lindholm took over from the first qualifying session on Friday morning while the rankings remained as tight as ever. Unsatisfied with the behavior of his mount, Oliver Solberg went on the offensive in SS3 and took command. Behind him, his main adversaries were gradually being left behind.

Although very well prepared, Ole Christian Veiby never proved capable of reproducing the same performance as last year when he competed with Andreas Mikkelsen. The Polo was suddenly showing its age and its lack of development did not allow it to compete with the new Fabia in particular.

Author of a mistake in a wall of snow, Lindholm lost all his chances while Suninen suffered a mechanical problem which caused him to plummet in the ranking. During the first stage, the only driver able to upset Solberg was Sami Pajari. The Finn set 3 scratch times which allowed him to stay in contact.

ALSO READ > The return of 2C Competition to the world stage with Hyundai

On Saturday, Pajari continued to attack, but he performed a small trick which pushed him back to 4th. When returning to the service park Solberg had a 31s margin over Veiby and 4s over Huttunen. There was more uncertainty in the rankings where Suninen, Lindholm, but also Marco Bulacia were trying to get closer to the best places. In the lead, if Petter's son does not make a mistake, he has every chance of winning this round which will not have kept all its promises.

Loïc ROCCI

Journalist specializing in rallying past, present and future... and with a southern accent

0 View comments)

Read also

Comments

*The space reserved for logged in users. Please connect to be able to respond or post a comment!

0 Comment (s)

To write a comment