Solberg wins three out of four stages to extend Rally Estonia lead

Oliver Solberg won three of the four Saturday morning stages to extend his Rally Estonia lead as his impressive top-flight World Rally Championship return continued. 

The 23-year-old increased his advantage to 22.8s over Hyundai’s Ott Tanak having ended Friday with a 12.4s lead.   

Competing in the Rally1 category for the first time since 2022, Solberg was untouchable on Saturday morning as he reeled off three more stage wins to take his event tally to six out of 12 tests. Solberg almost completed a clean sweep of stage wins only to be denied by Tanak in stage 12 by just 0.5s.  

The son of 2003 world rally champion Petter Solberg did admit that not all of his runs were perfect, but crucially he and co-driver Elliott Edmondson were faster than their more experienced Rally1 rivals.     

Tanak had hoped to make inroads on Solberg’s overnight lead, but a couple of mistakes in stage nine (Raanitsa, 21.45 km) proved costly. The Estonian misjudged two braking points with the second causing an overshoot at a chicane and a brief stall. Tanak dropped to third behind team-mate Thierry Neuville as a result of the errors. 

Tanak responded in stage 10 to take the position back by 0.7s, only to drop 0.3s behind Neuville, who managed to outpace his team-mate in stage 11. Tanak fought back again in stage 12 to snatch second place from Neuville, who had to battle dust coming into the car after losing a window.  

“Quite a few mistakes this morning. Damaging the front bumper and no front aero meant in high-speed sections like this it’s quite tricky. Hopefully it’ll be better than this morning,” said Tanak. 

Two-time world champion Kalle Rovanpera dropped away from the podium fight, ending the loop 17.6s adrift of Neuville. The Finn couldn’t find the sweet spot with his GR Yaris package and was fighting the car in an event that he’s previously won on three occasions. 

“It’s always not the best feeling [when the pace is not there], but there’s also not much else to do. You just keep going and trying,” said Rovanpera.  

The battle for fifth provided a close fight as Hyundai’s Adrien Fourmaux edged Toyota’s Takamoto Katsuta by 2.8s. Championship leader Elfyn Evans maintained seventh position, but ended the loop 11.4s behind Katsuta. 

Toyota’s Sami Pajari emerged from the loop in eighth ahead of Martins Sesks, who remained the lead M-Sport-Ford runner. Josh McErlean was lucky to escape a brief excursion into a ditch on Stage 12 to hold onto 10th ahead of team-mate Gregoire Munster. 

Estonia’s Robert Virves led the WRC2 class by 31.9s from compatriot Georg Linnamae. 

The crews will tackle four traditional stages later today, before rounding out the day with a run through the Tartu Vale, 1.76km super special this evening.