Quote Originally Posted by AnttiL View Post
Or Solberg has just put in enough money

Don't get me wrong, I think he's ready for trying out on the top level, but it's not just the team giving him an opportunity.

Also interesting that he decided to learn these cars which will be obsolete next year
Insane that's what I thought off when I read this news.

On so many levels, in random order:

- learning old (pre 2022) car why? (imo, lack of active center diff will be biggest change)
- last season car at best, likely not even that (hopefully not the aero-hybrid Loubet had that has never been tested in that config on snow)

- throwing WRC2 title chance (Arctic was his best chance of scoring good points, together with Estonia)
- "throwing" testing experience from running the Arctic rally in January

For what exactly? Showing himself in WRC? So what he would drive it at some point anyway.
He has a contract for 2 years, so why now.

I can't help to think there is something more to this. First three things that come to mind:

- It's Adamo's decision, "to do something", cause he feels he needs to do something after very bad Monte for Hyundai
(both PR-wise but also sports-wise with possibly putting a pressure on one of the Toyota guys). He did this kind of snap decisions before seemingly without thinking of consequences (ex. Loeb going to Portugal in 2019 with different diff he didn't test and with no knowledge of stages)

- It's Adamo's way to put extra PR-pressure on Hyundai, to make them commit to 2022 ("Look we have this coming new great driver and he has a deal with us for next year")

- Solbergs (-team) are not so enthusiastic about the current I20 R5 and want to wait for new one for real WRC2 fight

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Most likely it's a combination of the first 2, last one is just a total speculation.
EDIT: Seems like Sulland's post confirms the first idea


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Again I am astounded by the hype, now it seems to overdo even Rovanpera-hype levels, especially reading this from D. Evans: https://dirtfish.com/rally/wrc/what-...-rally1-debut/

So far Solberg has won Rally2 in Really Estonia last year and Rally Liepāja that's it. There is a long list of rallies where he has certainly shown signs of speed, but only over a stage or two.

Monte great example. He won two stage out of which only one with a decent time difference. Else he was usually 3-5.
On that one stage that is boasted by Evans the late R5s had better conditions and out of these only 2-3 were pushing and Gryazin (who usually did same times) had a puncture.

No this doesn't mean I think he is bad and certainly doesn't mean that he won't have a great future. But he should really take some time to learn to show stable performances. Btw. running WRC for whole season would also work for that, but not jumping between R5 and "old" WRC

Btw. we have seen this before with Petter. He went to Subaru probably a bit too early and it resulted in at least a year with unnecessary crashes. Problem is this kind of "long term" learning worked in 2002 and also worked for Ogier in 2009-2010, but it needs a "stable" team/team leadership that sticks with the driver during the time it takes to develop. Adamo+Hyundai does not seem to be that kind of team. (see Huttunen).