Solberg reveals struggle against the factory teams

Petter Solberg says fifth place on last week’s ADAC Rallye Deutschland was the best result he could have hoped for running as a privateer against strong opposition from the factory teams.

Solberg, the 2003 world champion, has run as an independent since his long-term employer Subaru withdraw from the World Rally Championship at the end of the 2008 season.

Although he has set a number of fastest stage times and led several rallies this year, Solberg’s pace has dipped on recent events as the factory teams from Citroen, Ford and MINI up the performance of their cars.

“This was the first Tarmac event with the [Citroen DS3 WRC], so I’m about where I expected to be as the fastest privateer fighting with the works cars,” said the Norwegian. “The works cars have developed quickly over the last events. That makes it even better for us, as a private team, to be keeping up with their speed.”

Co-driven by Briton Chris Patterson, Solberg could have been even closer to the factory teams had it not been for a succession of punctures slowing his progress. He suffered a total of four deflations on the second day of the event alone.

While Solberg was frustrated not to have challenged for his second podium of 2011 in Germany, he gained considerable satisfaction from the bonus point he scored by setting the third best time on the event-closing SSS Circus Maximus Trier Power Stage, which was shown live on television around the world.

“It felt really good to score one extra point at the Circus Maximus just 0.04 seconds faster than Jari-Matti [Latvala],” said Solberg. “But it was the same in Germany as in Finland where we should have been on the podium. The development of the manufacturers is going so fast now that it’s hard. We just have to push on, keep fighting and hopefully be back on the pace properly for the next rally.”