Oliver Solberg feels relief and "more at peace" after his latest result at Rally Estonia last week taking into account the tough events he had on the first half of the season.
Solberg started his 2026 WRC season in a positive way after winning Rallye Monte Carlo and finishing fourth overall at Rally Sweden. However, he lost the chance to score good points for the championship as he made some driving mistakes on the three tarmac events of the season. In fact, he was fighting for the first place in Japan and in Islas Canarias whereas he set himself out of competition from the first stage of Croatia Rally after his crashing out. At Safari Rally Kenya, he also restarted under the SuperRally regulations after suffering some mechanical issues with his Toyota GR Yaris Rally1 which were caused by the stage roughness. At Rally Estonia, he secured his second top two finish in 2026 as he firstly finished at the second place of the podium at Rally Portugal three months ago. Last weekend, the Swede was the first Rally1 driver who responded to Sami Pajari's domination in Estonia by winning two stages on Saturday morning. In general, Solberg tried to avoid the unnecessary risks during the ninth WRC round of the season, as we can see from his stage times, while he found his last-year's pace very late in Estonia as he found himself topping the stage sheets on Saturday. Nevertheless, it must be mentioned that once again he scored the ten maximum points on Sunday which were crucial for him considering how many points he lost on the first half of 2026. After the end of the ninth WRC round, Solberg keeps the fifth place on the drivers' standings with 130 points and is just nine points behind the fourth Sebastien Ogier.
"After Greece that was mentally the hardest rally", Solberg said.
"This rally [in Estonia] was also hard because you want more and you know you can do more, and at some stages I did and it was fine. It was a case of controlling myself.
"If I’m not fully comfortable it is ok.
"I think it was a tricky week, and I think I was a little bit scared all weekend to go 100%.
"Sami had an amazing feeling and did an amazing job and to match that you needed to risk a lot and push 100%.
"I don't think this time I was prepared to do it after everything that's happened.
"So it's very important for me to have a clean weekend and just drive after my feeling along the way.
"I turned it up a little bit to get the maximum Sunday points.
"I know I can win rallies and I've shown many times I can fight at the top.
"I think it's also very important to figure out that balance for championship fighting.
"Sometimes you win, sometimes you are on the podium. But I think I wish I had accepted that a little earlier in the season, but that's easy to say now, but still I'm very happy.
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