Oliver Solberg

[AnttiL]

Small correction, it is a good national event :-)

Yes, I already was corrected on this but I was thinking about event outside his home country.

I can see Dirtfish writing numerous articles on this event, not from a Norwegian local rally.

[HKSjbg]

It just seems really strange to me and gives him everything to lose. Can you imagine if he gets beaten by Matt Hirst or someone?
Wouldn’t be surprised if the BRC are throwing money at him so they can have an extra car on the entry list.

It’s not very likely though is it? Even if Pryce and Cronin had entered the Cambrian I doubt they’d be able to touch Solberg - not saying a clean sweep of stage wins, but it would probably be a similar result to Hayden Paddon on Rali Ceredigion

[pantealex]

My question is:
Why did Oliver choose to drive POLO when they have i20 Rally2 with latest upgrades in their garage also ?

Are they so mad to Hyundai ?

Latest i20 should be faster than their POLO which haven't been used in year (or did they do latest "tuning" for POLO)

[Jarek Z]

My question is:
Why did Oliver choose to drive POLO when they have i20 Rally2 with latest upgrades in their garage also ?

Because Hyundai i20 Rally2 never wins any rallies?

[Danny0405]

My question is:
Why did Oliver choose to drive POLO when they have i20 Rally2 with latest upgrades in their garage also ?

Are they so mad to Hyundai ?

Latest i20 should be faster than their POLO which haven't been used in year (or did they do latest "tuning" for POLO)

Think it is really over between Solberg and Hyundai and probably they even said him he will not be their Rally2 lead driver (clearly think about Paddon for this considering his season and Suninen being quite average); else the communication would have been less sharp.
And at the moment, the Hyundai, even if latest car, is not the best car on the market (and maybe more expensive as newer). And Polo is clearly not a bad choice if driven by the good team. See for example in France where Giordano and his Polo is beating Ciamin and a new Hyundai.
Also, it’s not a big event so maybe Hyundai didn’t want to lend them a car and Petter’s team owns one Polo so it’s clearly simpler.

Well, difficult to know about Solberg if it’s the good decision by Hyundai. Clearly he was an Adamo and PR choice. Maybe an early choice but not a completly insane choice as the guy has some potential and for this time, we cannot criticize Hyundai for having launched a young guy in the mix.

With the new management + a brand where it’s really difficult to know how much time they will get involved (and since quite a while), we can understand than the team management wants to try something else (than the plan of the former manager) as Solberg has not done enough to prove he can become fastly an efficient driver.
But as I said before, it’s only valuable if Tanak stays; if Tanak is leaving, even with a shared-car strategy in the 3rd and even the 2nd car, I’m highly doubtful they can fight with Toyota line-up for the manufacturer title (as Toyota is now using a shared-car strategy itself even if not totally by its own choice so it’s different than 2019) and in that case, their best chance would have been in Solberg’s improvements.
Anyway, saying that Solberg has made them lost the championship is also wrong, they clearly had a lot of issues with the car from the beginning and even with Breen still being there, the result in the championship would have no different this year considering the gap; next year is another stuff as Hyundai has now improved the car.

[Sulland]

My question is:
Why did Oliver choose to drive POLO when they have i20 Rally2 with latest upgrades in their garage

which one do Solbergs own?
https://www.ewrc-results.com/cars-ow...-i20-n-rally2/

[AnttiL]

I was under the impression that i20 N Rally was only "borrowed" for the Solbergs to get more familiar with it, but I have no factual knowledge. Polo meanwhile is their own for sure.

From Oliver's perspective, he just needs to keep active and to have fun and the stages on that rally are a perfect way to do that, and maybe Polo is the perfect car for that purpose, to have fun? Or maybe they just really don't want to show up with Hyundai anymore.

[bandit12]

As far as i know, if he drove that rally2, he used one of redgrey cars
https://redgreyteam.com/

[ouvreur]

The Solberg family do not own any Hyundai i20 N Rally2s.

[AMSS]

I was under the impression that i20 N Rally was only "borrowed" for the Solbergs to get more familiar with it, but I have no factual knowledge. Polo meanwhile is their own for sure.

From Oliver's perspective, he just needs to keep active and to have fun and the stages on that rally are a perfect way to do that, and maybe Polo is the perfect car for that purpose, to have fun? Or maybe they just really don't want to show up with Hyundai anymore.

Didn`t Dennis Rådström buy the Polo from the Sohlbergs?