Oliver Solberg

[Sulland]

Do they have 1 or 2 Polo R5 ?

Oliver did drive Wales with their "old" Polo (chassis #1) and Petter was driving brand new one.
Who owns that car ? (ewrc doesn´t have that chassis)

Looks like they have 2
https://www.ewrc-results.com/owner/1...rg-rally-team/

Petter have usually bought cars that have special memories connected for him, to put in his museum.

[mknight]

To me I think it would be surprising if Oliver is NOT in a RC1 car next year. He can gain experience in such a car as well. As long as teambosses think it´s worth to get him a seat.

Very little point for him to learn the current WRC when the new one from 2022 is significantly different both with drivetrain but also with no active center diff.
What would make sense is to drive R5 and take part in development tests of the new car.

[SubaruNorway]

The plan was to do R5 for 3 years earlier this year anyway

Petter's Polo from Wales is going in the museum i saw

[pantealex]

Oliver took his 1st WRC level Rally2/RC2/WRC3 win and people are ready to give him WRC drive...

Same people say Kalle was not ready for WRC and Kalle had multiple RC2 wins.

[Sulland]

Oliver is a good driver. He has experience with 600 hp supercars in rallycross, I dont think Kalle had that, but he had at least one full season in WRC2.

Oliver might fix Rally1 power, and be competitive next week, but imo he need more Rally2 experience. He should drive and learn as many rounds as he can, to get own notes, and learn the courses.
But if he is not ready and does not match the best, he might ruin a bright future.

One option is to connect the Solberg Klan to Ford, as a test driver, and compete in Rally2.
But again, they do not currently have competitive cars in either of the top two classes, so could be a double-edged sword.
He is also under Skoda contract until new info on that comes.

My guess is that he will continue as planned with the two VAG cars.

[Rallyper]

There always two sides of the coin.

However, if not teambosses already contacted him, I would be very surprised. That is the key. To negotiate at this point even if it means RC1 drive first time in 2022.

[sindroms]

Same people say Kalle was not ready for WRC and Kalle had multiple RC2 wins.

So we can start to build prognosis which one will be better on WRC level when both of them will be in more or less equal situation (in terms of mileage, experience and cars)

Ok, ok.. it's quiet too early for it, but it's quite favorite topic in my rally company - among peoples who have seen Oliver and Kalle grow up on Latvian roads. Opinions differ

[doubled1978]

Rovanpera has proved he was ready, no problem for him. Personally I think Oliver could step up to the top class and do well even next year, but another year (a full one) in a second tier car certainly won’t do him any harm, as much to learn the rallies as anything else.

[the sniper]

I think the Covid situation has made the strategy for Oliver much clearer. Having missed so many of the rallies this year, next year will hopefully allow him to do the rallies he's missed, another learning year. If we'd had a full season this year and he'd had such consistently strong results across even more rallies, I'd be arguing more strongly that he should step up to RC1. But at the end of the day, he's never even done the likes of Rally Portugal or Finland, on the latter he was just a spectator last year stood next to me on the Urria stage!

With the reduced calendar in 2021, even before any possible cancellations, I'd be really surprised though if he isn't aiming to do some serious test millage in a WRCar or 2022 Rally1. You've got to imagine there'll be plenty of opportunities as the team will be wanting to put millage on the new cars. It's not long before these conversations will start, surely.

Another way the Covid situation may have worked in Oliver's favour is that it has somewhat limited the lead in experience Rovanpera is getting over him. I think this is the rivalry a lot of us are looking forward to. When I watched Urria 1 next to the Solberg's, I said to Olive after Kalle went past, 'Your main rival in the future?', he replied, 'Maybe!'. I wanted to reply, 'Definitely, and I can't wait!', but I think the bizarreness of me having this conversation with him dawned on me at this moment so I just smiled and played it cool(ish)...

[GigiGalliNo1]

Problem is who will go if a "Team" give him a seat?