Petter Solberg, the great return: he will race in ERC at the Rally Scandinavia

Sometimes they come back. And, sometimes, they are returns that make noise. Indeed, a pleasant symphony.

Petter Solberg announced in the last few hours that he will return to driving a rally car not in a historic event, nor in one with relative importance, but at the Bauhaus Royal Rally Scandinavia, an event that is part of the European Rally Championship which will be held from 13 to June 15th.

The 2003 WRC world champion, when he was an official driver for Subaru at the time, is now 49 years old, yet he decided to race in the third round of the ERC at the wheel of the family Volkswagen Polo GTI R5.

In the Scandinavian event it will be navigated by Jonas Andersson, a navigator who for some years now has been dictating notes during the special stages to Gus Greensmith, official Skoda driver in the TokSport team and one of the main candidates for the WRC2 title.

“He was calling me,” Solberg said. “Every time I looked at it, the machine called to me to use it! You can’t ignore it.”

“You know me, you know my family. Rallies are everything to us. Last year I took my mother for a spin in my Citroen C4 WRC in a special stage of the Royal Rally. It was nice, but Oliver took all the fun winning the rally”.

“I’m not going there trying to win. I’ll do it for the show and to enjoy the driving. It’s definitely going to be tough. It’s been 5 years since I competed in Rally Britain (winning in WRC2 and finishing 10th overall). Since then I haven’t nothing has been done. The speed is incredible in the championship and I know well that it won’t be enough to turn the throttle to become competitive again.”

“I have Jonas (Andersson) who will navigate me, and it’s a nice thing. We live close to each other, but we’ve never raced together before. I can’t wait to do it, being in a racing car is something special. Look Carlos (Sainz), it was incredible to be the winner of the Dakar and it’s incredible to see him do what he does. He was my teammate in 1999, he’s a great person and he’s special, he has been in my career and he is. still a great inspiration.”