Solberg vows not to give up in title chase

If fortune had favoured Petter Solberg on the opening two rounds of the World Rally Championship this year then the Norwegian could have challenged for victory on both events.

Instead, setbacks in Sweden and Mexico currently restrict him to fifth in the table, 23 points shy of leader Mikko Hirvonen.

But the Norwegian, who is piloting a factory-assisted Citroen DS3 WRC under the Petter Solberg World Rally Team banner this season, is convinced that he can hit back, starting with the next round in Portugal at the end of March.

“I should be quite happy right now because the performance we have means we can fight on the top and that is very important,” says Solberg. “If you look at the [electrical] problems we had on the first day [in Mexico] we were lucky to get to the finish and get points at all. But if we had the luck we could have won Mexico and in Sweden also and that is frustrating to think of this.”

The 2003 world champion continued: “It’s actually a bit crazy that I was slightly disappointed at the end in Mexico after the problems we had. Even then, I thought that the absolute maximum from 14th would be to finish fifth - and that would be so hard. But in the end we were fourth.

“It just goes to show what I have always believed in: you never give up. It’s even written on the car. I’ve had some incredibly hard times in the past, especially at the end of 2008 when Subaru stopped, but I’ve always come back and never stopped believing in myself. Now we have to push on and go for the result in Portugal. It’s going to be a big fight definitely but we can do it.”

Solberg, who is co-driven by Northern Irishman Chris Patterson, is due to get a test in Portugal before the country’s WRC qualifier from 24-27 March, where his team manager Ken Rees reckons he can make a big impact.

“We hope to do a test the Sunday before and that will help us,” says Rees. “We’ll be fifth in the road on Portugal and that’s not a bad road position if the winter weather has been good to the stages. You can look at Mexico as being an extended test. But if we had luck on our side we could have been up there with the two Sebtastiens.

“But as long as we keep getting the points then we’ll do okay. We’re no more than a win away from Mikko and we know we can achieve a lot more on the next events. We want wins but we learned last year getting points gets you up there in the championship and if we’d got two more points last year we’d have been second and not third. Petter has got a lot more to offer.”