Seventeen year old Oliver Solberg is believed to be the youngest ever winner of an FIA championship rally, after winning the European Championship Rally Liepaja.
Driving a Volkswagen Polo GTI R5, the Swedish resident led from start to finish, beating Russian driver, Alexey Lukyanuk, by over 20 seconds.
Oliver Solberg drove an incredible rally to take victory.
Lukyanuk’s position is provisional as he was penalised by the organisers for driving too fast on liaison sections twice, the second time being clocked at 168km/h in a 90km/h zone, and the matter is being taken to the Stewards.
This is complete and utter madness on so many levels. In days when road safety around rallying is such an issue, i’m sorry, but I’d have kicked him out. And what was he thinking? That the rally safe system wasn’t working?
Very disappointing behaviour from an experienced driver pic.twitter.com/AO66sIcYtv— Colin Clark (@voiceofrally) May 26, 2019
The excessively fast gravel stage roads of Latvia saw Solberg achieve a winning average speed of 122km/h.
Solberg won 10 of the 13 stages, the other three going to the Russian.
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Sergey Remmenik rolled his Lancer Evo. Photo: Remmenik PR
The Junior, two wheel drive category was won by Estonian driver Ken Torn’s Fiesta R2T, and Andrea Nucita won the Abarth Cup championship round.
This was the third round of the ERC, the next round is the Rajd Polski the end of June.
UNBELIEVABLE!
This is the biggest day of my life, vinning my @FIAERC @LVRally debut with the drive of my life!
Thanks, Takk, Tack to my amazing team and family and all my fans for your brilliant support – WE DID IT! 🐺 🥇 pic.twitter.com/XsOzRdwrrD— Oliver Solberg (@OliverSolberg01) May 26, 2019
Martin Holmes at his nostalgic best:
