The young Swede moved into the lead of the event already on the opening day and left the more experienced star drivers behind in convincing fashion.
After the first day of driving, Solberg leads the rally by as much as 44.2 seconds over his Toyota team-mate Elfyn Evans. Although the conditions were challenging, the gap can be considered exceptionally large at this stage of the rally.
The performance is all the more astonishing given that Solberg is only driving his first full season in Toyota’s Rally1 car. Despite that, he has been able to defeat the entire field of rally veterans, led by nine-time world champion Sébastien Ogier.
“I don’t know if the performance was perfect, but there is still a lot to learn and many things are still new,” Solberg said at the end of the day.
“I try to drive as well as possible when I feel comfortable, but in certain areas there is still clearly room for improvement. An absolutely crazy evening. The conditions were completely incomprehensible: every special stage was different, every kilometre was different. You had to be really careful, even the smallest things mattered. But this evening was a good evening,” he continued.
Solberg’s talent has long been known. Even so, the Swede’s lead is to some extent completely incomprehensible.
“I haven’t really had time to think about it properly yet, but I am extremely satisfied – and perhaps above all relieved, because this was really difficult,” Solberg said.
Solberg said outright that his performance came as a surprise even to himself.
“Yes, of course I’m surprised. First of all, on both the first and the last special stage the tyres weren’t the best possible, and still I was surprised that I could drive such a good time already on the very first one,” he said.
“I’m a bit surprised by how big the gap became. Elliott (co-driver Edmondson) seemed quite confident at the finish, but I wasn’t – although I’m never confident,” he laughed.
Solberg drove the first day in Monte quite literally “defying death”.
“I have to say that this is incredible. An incredible start, an incredible evening. Now I need to take a moment to breathe, because this has been the most difficult evening or day of my life – or at least of my career so far,” Solberg said.
“But overall this has been really fun: challenging, but fun. This evening has had absolutely everything. Above all I’m happy to be here, and in this position as well – it’s incredible,” Solberg enthused.
