After producing some of the world¹s most dynamic and charismatic drivers - including a World Champion - the Norwegians have been rewarded with their own FIA World Rally Championship round. Like its sister event, Uddeholm Swedish Rally, Rally Norway will be an all-snow round, making it one of only two in the entire championship. Temperatures at this time of year could drop to as low as -30C, and snow is a certainty. Rally Norway applied for WRC status in 2006, and after a successful candidate event, it was awarded a date in the 2007 calendar. Like Sweden, Norway will be an extremely fast rally. The speed will have to be tempered with caution though. Roadside snow-banks will offer a cushion for the lack of grip, but as always, they may be as dangerous as they are helpful. Tyre choice here will be extremely important.
As with Finland and Sweden, Norway will allow local Scandinavian talent to shine on a surface that WRC drivers have previously experienced only once a year. In recent years, Henning Solberg has performed extremely well on his home roads, and Norway¹s homegrown hero added a victory here in 2006 to his growing résumé with a margin of over five minutes. But, perhaps the most interesting aspect of Rally Norway is the ‘Viking Ship’, Hamar¹s Olympic Hall. This facility will house an indoor service park, which means a chance to stay warm during the service breaks for the mechanics, engineers, spectators and media. At the end of day one of Rally Norway, the Subaru World Rally Team has one car firmly in the points and the other just outside the top eight. The cars have returned to the Viking Ship, Hamar, at the end of the leg, and Petter Solberg, on his home event, is in fourth place at the end of a positive day during which he made a deliberately steady start and battled up the order in the afternoon. Chris Atkinson spent most of the day getting used to the conditions and ended up ninth, just a few seconds off eighth place.
Subaru World Rally Team Managing Director, Richard Taylor: “We’re very pleased with Petter’s performance today. He’s ended in a strong fourth place, which is right on target, and where we expected him to be at this stage of the rally. Chris has had a tougher time but we have to remember that although this is his fourth snow rally, all of his experience has been on the Swedish Rally and conditions here are very different. It’s much more technical, tight and twisty and he has to get used to that with the car. We’ve had great performance from our BFGoodrich tyres throughout the leg. Overall we’re satisfied with the positions of both drivers at this stage of the rally and looking forward to the rest of the event.”
Petter Solberg: “It’s been very good today. I’m very happy with the result, fourth is not a bad position to be in at the end of the first leg. We have been working very hard to get through the day without any major problems, and the only thing that has happened is the bent steering on SS6 when we hit something. Driving in front of all these people is such an unbelievable feeling and I’m looking forward to the next two days of the rally. We’ve been building up our confidence and if things continue to go this way I think we can challenge for the podium, but our main objective is to finish this rally. That is important for the rest of our season.”
Chris Atkinson: “It hasn’t been a perfect day for us, but it is good to get to the end of the first leg and we’re still in ninth place. There’s a lot more to come and we can try to move up into the points during the weekend. It hasn’t been easy today. We’re struggling with the balance of the car and it feels a lot different to Sweden last weekend, where we were able to push quite hard. If we can make everything right for tomorrow, we can be fast on any stage.”
