Mads Ostberg has split with his 48-year old co-driver, Ola Floene, effective immediately.
Ola Floene (left) has split with driver Mads Ostberg.The announcement comes shortly after the OneBetJipocar decided that they will not enter their 2017 World Rally Car in Germany.
In the forthcoming WRC Neste Rally Finland, Mads will be co-driven by fellow Norwegian, 27-year old Torstein Eriksen, currently co-driver for the Swede Fredrik Ahlin, and for Adapta driver Frank Tore Larsen.
One week later Mads will be entered by the Adapta team in a Fiesta R5 in the European Championship Rzeszow Rally, an asphalt event, with Swedish co-driver Patrick Barth.
This will be in preparation for Rallye Germany which will again be contested in a Fiesta R5, an event clashing with the British Championship Ulster Rally, where Torstein will compete with his regular driver Ahlin.
OneBet team chief, Morten Ostberg, said that Ola is to continue to work with Adapta on various ongoing projects, looking for new young drivers to train and other business projects.
“I expect Ola will be working with us for a long time. The reason for the change is for sporting reasons. He is a good co-driver and reads pacenotes very well.
“He worked very well with both Andreas Mikkelsen and Pontus Tidemand in their formative years, but working with the already very experienced Mads was different.”
- Martin Holmes