Solberg gets Pirelli entry adding to 21 British Rally Championship Junior entries

Norwegian driver Oscar Solberg is targeting event wins on his return to the Prestone Motorsport News Junior British Rally Championship for the Pirelli International Rally.

Solberg, son of Henning and nephew of Petter, finished third in last year’s JBRC aboard a Ford Fiesta R2T run by MH Motorsport. He’s back with car and team for the Kielder event this weekend.

“I hope to do the whole series,” said Solberg. “We’ll start with the Pirelli and see how things look after that. I think it will be good to go back to two-wheel drive again, and I know a lot of the people who are driving in the Junior BRC so I’m looking forward to it.

“It’s good to come out of Norway and drive on different rallies. I hope to do one rally in the ERC. I hope to do one more rally at the end of the year in the R5 as I was learning a lot on the last event with that.”

Solberg won the opening JBRC round last year, the Border Counties Rally, while he suffered reliability trouble on multiple other rounds.

In the winter, he drove Petter Solberg’s historic-spec Ford Escort Mk2 in Norway, and a Skoda Fabia and Ford Fiesta R5 over three events.

“I borrowed Petter’s Escort, I don’t have a rally car at home,” said Solberg. “It was too nice [to break] I had to be careful. I was driving from the rear!”

Solberg will be partnered in Cumbria by new co-driver, Jorgen Eriksen. Solberg starts as the second JBRC entrant behind last year’s runner-up William Creighton (Peugeot 208 R2). Last year’s champion starts the event but isn’t BRC registered ( below).