New Zealand’s Hayden Paddon has put up a strong fight against the Swede but hasn’t quite been able to match Solberg, who set the fastest times on all four stages of Saturday morning’s loop.
“I’m surprised, I was so slow at the end, it is so tricky. The beginning was good, I was pushing and it is a beautiful stage,” Solberg summarized.
“We don’t have an answer for [Solberg] at the moment, the car is not working with the low grip and there is no confidence in the car at all. Hopefully the grip might come to us and help us a little bit,” Paddon remarked.
In third place is Toyota’s Mikko Heikkilä, 26.4 seconds behind the leader. However, Heikkilä needs to be cautious as ERC leader Mathieu Franceschi is only 5.7 seconds behind the Finn.
“I just told my co-driver that I am not happy at all, we were way too careful in the beginning. We started to go quite wide on the lines and stopped too much,” Heikkilä lamented.
Norwegian Frank Tore Larsen is in fifth place, but his gap to the lead is already over a minute. Mads Østberg is half a second behind his compatriot. Also in the top eight are Martins Sesks and Isak Reiersen.
The Swedish ERC rally has four special stages remaining after the service break.
Royal Rally of Scandinavia standings after SS13/17:
| POS | Driver | Team | Time |
| 1. | Oliver Solberg | Skoda | 1:07:17.0 |
| 2. | Hayden Paddon | Hyundai | +13.7 |
| 3. | Mikko Heikkilä | Toyota | +26.4 |
| 4. | Mathieu Franceschi | Skoda | +32.1 |
| 5. | Frank Tore Larsen | VW | +1:11.0 |
| 6. | Mads Østberg | Citroen | +1:11.5 |
| 7. | Martins Sesks | Toyota | +1:12.4 |
| 8. | Isak Reiersen | Skoda | +1:21.1 |
| 9. | Miko Marczyk | Skoda | +1:39.5 |
| 10. | Andrea Mabellini | Skoda | +1:48.2 |
| 11. | Eyvind Brynildsen | VW | +1:48.3 |
| 12. | Jon Armstrong | Ford | +2:03.6 |
