Hyundai Motorsport´s Oliver Solberg will not be allowed to take part in next week´s FIA World Rally Championship round in Sardinia, Italy as his father, the 2003 world champion Petter Solberg has tested positive for COVID-19.
The FIA and also the national regulations for COVID-19 in Norway require all who had close contact with an infected person shall do a quarantine of two weeks from the day when the test answer arrived, which in this case includes Oliver.
Petter, who is a three time world champion in rally and rallycross combined, tested positive this week on the Monday after the family have been to Portugal for round four of the 2021 WRC season.
For Oliver´s case, this means he will miss out his second appearance for Hyundai Motorsport in the WRC class, the nineteen-year-old did his first WRC2 event of the year in Portgual and he has taken several negative COVID-19 tests over the past days but now he has to stay in guarantine at a hotel in Porto.
“You can imagine, I am more than disappointed by this news. I am a little bit devastated but you know, we have seen in the last year what coronavirus can do. My papa is doing well with a small fever and I’m thinking to him right now,” Solberg said.
“It’s really hard to take now, but the time for my next rally in that amazing Hyundai i20 Coupe WRC will come. We have these rules and regulations for a reason and that reason is to try to stop this thing spreading.”
“My family accepts completely what the FIA, the rally organisers, the national governments and medical professionals are telling us. The most important thing is that we keep people safe.”
