Oliver Solberg

**the sniper** · 10th September 2020, 00:41

Originally Posted by Katvala

Then there is of course also the fact that Harri is a well known rally driver, who has a lot of contacts. When word gets out that the son of a famous driver is starting driving, then of course there will be light put on him too. There is a reason why there are so many rally families.

In the case of Kalle and Oliver, how much were they actually funded by their own families, beyond the very early years? I'd have thought they'd have both been able to attract enough sponsorship once they got up to the R2 level on the basis of their names, family connections, career stories and talent. They certainly both had a lot of decent sponsors on their cars coming up. The waters may be a little muddied in the case of Petter as he may be investing money in his own operation in order to prepare to become a manufacturer team in future...

**GigiGalliNo1** · 10th September 2020, 04:37

And the case of Neuville? He was not rich nor wealthy when he started.

**Sulland** · 28th November 2020, 19:00

Where do you see Oliver driving in 2021?

ERC1 driving for the top title
WRC2 for a Manufacturer
WRC2 in privat team

Or will he do a Kalle going in the fastlane into WRC1?

If he will be picked up by a manufacturer, which one will pick him up?

RS · 28th November 2020, 20:12

Originally Posted by Sulland

Where do you see Oliver driving in 2021?

ERC1 driving for the top title
WRC2 for a Manufacturer
WRC2 in privat team

Or will he do a Kalle going in the fastlane into WRC1?

If he will be picked up by a manufacturer, which one will pick him up?

Isn’t Oliver under some long term contract with Skoda? I’d expect to see him in WRC2 or 3 in a ‘Skoda Motorsport Customer Racing’ Fabia next year, maybe with some ERC events too.

And Kalle did spend two years in a Fabia R5 before being picked up Toyota so not that fast-tracked..

**Mirek** · 28th November 2020, 20:17

There's a question if Škoda will do anything substantial next year before they come with the new Fabia.

**er88** · 28th November 2020, 21:31

R5 next season then we could potentially see him in the 3rd Toyota seat for 2022. Or being given some sort of partial campaign in a top line car

**olemann** · 28th November 2020, 21:57

Why Skoda. He drove Petter's old Wolksvagen in this race, didn't he?

**Mirek** · 28th November 2020, 23:24

Originally Posted by olemann

Why Skoda. He drove Petter's old Wolksvagen in this race, didn't he?

Because he was a contractor driver for Škoda this year (but that applied only for WRC3).

**AnttiL** · 29th November 2020, 07:33

Originally Posted by Sulland

Where do you see Oliver driving in 2021?

ERC1 driving for the top title
WRC2 for a Manufacturer
WRC2 in privat team

Or will he do a Kalle going in the fastlane into WRC1?

If he will be picked up by a manufacturer, which one will pick him up?

Oliver made his WRC event entry in last year's Wales, and Kalle did the same two years earlier, so we could say Oliver is coming two years behind Kalle. So if Oliver gets to a WRC car next year, he's fastlaned. I think we've already discussed that it wouldn't make sense for him to learn the WRC 2017 cars for one year and then learn the new 2022 cars again.

I believe Oliver will do a big WRC2/3 season next year, but the team is a good question...is he already committing to a team he will drive with in 2022?

**mknight** · 29th November 2020, 09:14

Question is what Skoda will do. The car might start to lag a bit if Hyundai introduces a new one an Skoda scales down support to only parts and repair. Even worse if he would have to pay everything himself.

But on almost all gravel rallies in WRC2/3 small car differences don't matter much as long as the car is not hard to drive or unreliable.