Oliver Solberg admitted he realised Rally Mexico was “tougher than he thought” after his retirement from the event early on Friday morning.
Solberg was the fastest Rally2 runner on the opening pair of stages on Thursday evening before he hit a rock on the opening pass through El Chocolate that damaged the sump on the Volkswagen Polo R5 and forced him to retire from the rest of the event.
The young Norwegian driver said on the incident: “It was a big rock and the bang when it hit the car was quite loud. To retire from the event so early is so much more than disappointing. It’s really sad for me and Aaron and the whole team.”
“I knew Rally Mexico would be tough. The heat, the altitude and the roughness of stages all combine to make this rally so hard. From the recce, already I was thinking this would be tougher than I thought and that’s just what happened.”
Despite his setback, Solberg was adamant to look forward to his next outing in the car and added: “Now we focus on going home and working on the development of both the car and me. Mexico was amazing but didn’t deliver the result we were hoping for.”
Rally Mexico continues throughout this weekend.
