Oliver Solberg and Isak Reiersen, who won the 2018 and 2021 Supercar and CrossCar titles respectively in the RallyX championship, made their presence felt at last weekend’s Rally Sweden.
Winning by one minute and 19 seconds ahead of Finland’s Sami Pajari, Oliver Solberg made no compromises at the wheel of his Skoda Fabia RS.
In fact, Oliver Solberg got his 2024 WRC2 season off to the best possible start by taking the top step of the podium.
In 18 special stages, the Skoda Motorsport driver set no less than 11 fastest times and finished in the WRC2 top 3 on 15 occasions.
The undisputed leader of his category since the start of the rally, he gradually began to take the measure of his rivals, increasing his lead to around thirty seconds by the end of SS8, before taking advantage of SS9 and SS11 to consolidate his position, extending his gap to 41.5 and 58.9 seconds respectively over his closest rival.
“What can I say?” smiled Oliver. “It’s been a fantastic event. For my first WRC2 round of the season, to win with Škoda like this is something very special. Škoda Motorsport is building a very special car with the Fabia RS Rally2 and it was a big pleasure to drive it here.
“The conditions were not easy – on Friday the snow was really deep in places and then on Saturday we were having some gravel coming through and all the time you had to be thinking about the tyres and trying to protect them.
“I think we showed the good pace on the first day and it was really cool to finish third overall, that was a pretty amazing feeling for me and to share that with the home fans and so many of my family… I was stoked for that.
“Saturday and Sunday was more about driving with the control. We had a lot to lose if we pushed too hard. We were sitting in fifth overall and with the good lead [in WRC2], so we didn’t want to take any big risks.
“Congratulations to the organisers for making a rally with such a special atmosphere and I want to say a big thanks to Elliott and the whole team for helping me to make this an amazing event.”
Backed by JC Raceteknik, Isak Reiersen didn’t miss out on his first career start in the WRC2 class.
The former RallyX champion’s potential was already well known, but Isak Reiersen used the Swedish Rally, the second round of the World Rally Championship, to consolidate his status.
Eighth in the Rally2 category at the wheel of the JC Raceteknik Skoda Fabia R5, Reiersen managed nine top-10 finishes on the 18 special stages.
In particular, he managed to slip under the symbolic one second per kilometer mark eight times, with his best performance coming on SS3, where he lost just 0.566 seconds per kilometer to rival Oliver Solberg.
This was enough to please a certain Joel Christoffersson, who was able to gauge the maturity of his young driver.
“I am very proud of Isak, and he should be proud of himself. To go into a class as strong as WRC2, in a round of the World Championship and perform like he did shows where he is at, but he also exceeded expectations for many people looking from the outside I am sure. The pace is one thing, but to have driven with such a mature head in conditions that were so, so challenging, and caused some of the very best rally drivers on the planet to make big mistakes, is very satisfying for the whole team. We came into this weekend with no real pressure, but the result of such a performance is very encouraging for the future. Never being outside of the top 20 overall positions the whole rally, and finishing inside the top 15 – that is something to remember.”
With little experience behind the wheel of the Skoda Fabia Rally2, Isak Reiersen was obviously delighted with his performance.
“It has been a wild ride, that’s for sure, but we made it through the rally. It has been long days and a lot of experience gained, everything from managing tyres to driving in full snow blizzard where you can’t even have the headlights on because of the snow and only being able to see about 60 meters in front of the car. The kilometers we have driven over the weekend has been the same as three Swedish Championship rounds, which would be half of the SM season. And the result – we are happy. P8 in WRC2 is strong.”
“Almost nobody crashed out which shows how high the level of drivers is in the class, and we lost only one second per kilometer to Oliver [Solberg, class winner], which we expected with his experience at this level, and we have a lot of data to analyse for the future. This is a memory that I will have with me for the rest of my life. I want to thank everyone involved for making this possible – this weekend has been really, really good for the future. The team was brilliant throughout the week, and Lucas did a great job sitting beside me too.”
