Oliver Solberg

[Rallyper]

and on what data do you base that claim? His single win in liepaja 2 years ago?

look beyond his name, look at the results. There is nothing there that would indicates he should have been promoted to a factory team trying to win the title.
Someone like mikkelsen is clearly a step above solberg and drivers like ostberg, suninen, huttunen, bulcacia, rossel, lefebvre or even gryazin are just as good.

This has nothing to do with jealousy, this is called being objective. If you want to contend a championship you need to hire the best drivers available. And solberg is not the best driver available, so he only is there because of his daddy.

Being objective need some more rational thinking than yours. And don´t compare to old established WRC drivers. I talked about youngsters. Don´t you think they need chances?

[denkimi]

Being objective need some more rational thinking than yours. And don´t compare to old established WRC drivers. I talked about youngsters. Don´t you think they need chances?

someone rational does not put a new unproven driver in a team where he needs to beat ogier and lappi for them to win the title.
For the perspective of the hyundai team trying to beat toyota that was an incredible stupid thing to do. Put him in a 4th car like katsuta.

[AnttiL]

Slow? I wouldn´t say that. Give me examples.

- Most of NZ Friday (on Saturday he had technical issues)
- Most of Ypres. He was fourth overall but best stage time was fifth and even that only once.
- Most of Estonia with a few decent stage times towards the end of the rally
- The beginning of Safari before his technical issues
- Most of the Friday stages in Croatia, with two good times at the end of the day.

It seems he's at his best on snow, with Arctic 2021 and Sweden 2022 being his two best performances overall.

[bandit12]

- Most of NZ Friday (on Saturday he had technical issues)
- Most of Ypres. He was fourth overall but best stage time was fifth and even that only once.
- Most of Estonia with a few decent stage times towards the end of the rally
- The beginning of Safari before his technical issues
- Most of the Friday stages in Croatia, with two good times at the end of the day.

It seems he's at his best on snow, with Arctic 2021 and Sweden 2022 being his two best performances overall.

Both winter rallyes, where he could adjust car by leaning its rear end to snow bank. He tried it again in last year rally Finland and crashed quite heavily.

[Rallyper]

someone rational does not put a new unproven driver in a team where he needs to beat ogier and lappi for them to win the title.
For the perspective of the hyundai team trying to beat toyota that was an incredible stupid thing to do. Put him in a 4th car like katsuta.

That has never been their perspective. And you know it. It´s unfair claiming that.

[Rallyper]

Both winter rallyes, where he could adjust car by leaning its rear end to snow bank. He tried it again in last year rally Finland and crashed quite heavily.

This quote also shows very big lack of knowledge.

[steve.mandzij]

- Most of NZ Friday (on Saturday he had technical issues)
- Most of Ypres. He was fourth overall but best stage time was fifth and even that only once.
- Most of Estonia with a few decent stage times towards the end of the rally
- The beginning of Safari before his technical issues
- Most of the Friday stages in Croatia, with two good times at the end of the day.

It seems he's at his best on snow, with Arctic 2021 and Sweden 2022 being his two best performances overall.

let alone that he admitted (in the heat of the moment, after his crash in Finland) that he's either trying to be fast and crashing, or hopelessly slow, last, and churning through his tyres.

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[wyler]

- Most of NZ Friday (on Saturday he had technical issues)
- Most of Ypres. He was fourth overall but best stage time was fifth and even that only once.
- Most of Estonia with a few decent stage times towards the end of the rally
- The beginning of Safari before his technical issues
- Most of the Friday stages in Croatia, with two good times at the end of the day.

It seems he's at his best on snow, with Arctic 2021 and Sweden 2022 being his two best performances overall.

it's not that i don't agree, but to put it in the context of "young drivers" we should compare this with the rookies.

[seb_sh]

I initially posted this in the Hyundai thread but now that i think of it it's more relevant here, so copy paste job. Basically I think Solberg is missing a year of focusing on WRC2 when when you compare his career steps with Rovanpera it's very obvious where they diverge:

(this part below is copied from my post in the Hyundai thread)
They both drove in Latvia as youngsters because they didn't have a licence. And as they began to beat people in Latvia started to add other championships. Rovanpera drove Latvia, Finland and Italy in 2017, Solberg did Latvia and America in 2019. They both did well at this stage, winning rallies and showing great speed and talent. Next step was WRC2 in 2018 for Rovanpera where he was fast but had some crashes, but he won a couple rallies, while Solberg was at a similar stage in 2020 racing in ERC and WRC2. Now this is perhaps the first point where Solberg lost a bit of momentum and experience because 2020 for him was to get used to being at the front in Rally2/R5 cars and it didn't help that it was a short year. The next stage for Rovanpera was full focus on WRC2 in 2019 where he won almost everything as we know, so far they had similar career steps and for Solberg this should have been 2021. But instead Adamo put him in the car on Arctic rally instead of the WRC2 as was the plan. After that he kept bouncing between the WRC2 and the WRC. Hyundai's Rally2 car was not great at the time so that plus constant switching probably confused him. Now at this point Rovanpera is a WRC2 winner having dominated the championship so Toyota decides to secure the future and put him in the car full time, the short 2020 wasn't good for him either but he had the WRC2 win behind him and he was steadily improving. Solberg got a partial season in a disorganised Hyundai team after a very confusing 2021.

I think Solberg is very talented but there was a big mistake made in his development especially when you put him side by side with Rovanpera's plan. I don't know who made the decisions of what to do, was it Adamo, the Koreans, his dad, Neuville, the Pope... In 2020 Oliver showed speed and 2021 should have been a year to focus on the WRC2 championship with some pressure and with fighting at the top but not so much to be in the main team, giving interviews etc. Most of the greats had that kind of season behind them when they went into the WRC and started to perform. That's Solberg's missing year.
(end of copy)

[AnttiL]

it's not that i don't agree, but to put it in the context of "young drivers" we should compare this with the rookies.

How many rallies in a top class machinery did it took for a driver to get their first stage win?
Fourmaux: 3 (with a shortcut? Otherwise it's 14)
Katsuta: 7
Loubet: 17
Greensmith: 22 (also very close in Portugal 2021)

Solberg got 13 rallies with top class cars and no stage win yet, one 2nd a handful of 3rd places in Sweden this year.

Out of these five drivers Katsuta is the only one who has won a power stage or gotten a podium. Katsuta and Loubet are the only ones who have led a rally.