Oliver Solberg admitted after clinching the ERC1 Junior title that his win was ‘as much for the team as it was for him’.
Solberg, driving a Volkswagen Polo R5, ended the final round of the FIA European Rally Championship – Rally Islas Canarias– in fourth place, but still clinched the ERC1 Junior championship in what was his first season in the championship.
The Swede also finished second in the overall title standings and had battled closely with eventual champion Alexey Lukyanuk throughout the European series.
Despite not winning the overall crown, the youngster was still delighted to clinch the junior title and said: “This is a fantastic result,”
“To win ERC1 Juniors and finish second overall in the European Rally Championship is incredible for me and for my whole team. Everybody here has just done the most amazing job all year, this result is really for them as well.
“The rally itself in the Canarias was very, very tricky. The stages on Friday were complicated with rain coming and making the grip and the set-up from the car difficult.
“But today (Saturday) was better, not quite so tricky. What’s important for me is that I have been able to show pace again.“
2020 has seen Solberg compete in both the ERC as well as the FIA World Rally Championship in WRC3 and he’s now set to compete in the season-finale at Rally Monza next weekend, in a Skoda Fabia Rally2.
“Now, I can’t wait to get to Italy for the last round of the World Rally Championship,” added Solberg ahead of the final round of the WRC.
“The end of this year has been quite focused on Tarmac rallies and that’s been really useful for me in learning this side of the sport.
“To go to Monza with this result from Canarias behind us is a really big boost, now we want to sign off from this year with another strong result in Italy.
“We re-started this difficult ERC year in Roma in the summer. That was our first ever asphalt rally and it went really well. It would be a nice way to say goodbye to 2020 with a similar result from Monza.”
Rally Monza is set to get underway on Thursday afternoon and continue throughout next weekend.
