The crew of Oliver Solberg and Elliott Edmondson in the Škoda Fabia RS Rally2 won the Rally Latvia in start-to-finish style. Thanks to their excellent performance, they climbed to the top of the FIA World Rally Championship standings in the WRC2 category after the eighth event out of a total of thirteen. Škoda crews took five positions in the top ten of the WRC2 category.
Oliver Solberg had already built up a seven-second lead in the opening super special stage on the Bikernieki racetrack on Thursday, and thanks to this dominant performance, he didn't let anyone take the lead of the Rally Latvia until the finish. Throughout Friday, Solberg and Edmondson increased their lead over their WRC2 rivals and were fastest in a total of six of the seven special stages.
Another Škoda Fabia RS Rally2 crew, the duo of Josh McErlean and James Fulton, also performed well in the opening stages of the rally. However, their drive ended in a ditch on stage six and although the Irish were able to continue after help from the spectators due to only cosmetic damage to the car, the episode cost them over a minute of time, and they dropped from a promising third place. On Saturday, there were more problems, but the pair eventually made it to eighth place in the WRC2 overall standings
Solberg drove on Saturday more on the safe side and at the same time had to deal with the role of "track cleaner". As the category's leading driver, he went into the special stages as its first representative. Nevertheless, he managed to hold on to his lead and his flawless drive meant that the crew could increase their lead quite comfortably on Sunday.
In total, Solberg and Edmondson won twelve of the twenty stages. This victory also puts the pair at the top of the standings in this year's WRC2 championship with five events already counted.
Rally Latvia was a real success for the Škoda crews. Five of them appeared in the top ten in the final WRC2 category standings. In addition to the two aforementioned crews from the Toksport WRT team, the duo of Fabrizio Zaldivar and Marcelo Der Ohannesian from Team RaceSeven, who finished in fourth place, and the duo of Roberto Daprà/Luca Guglielmetti from Delta Rally Team, who finished sixth.
Armin Kremer and his daughter Ella finished in ninth place in the WRC2 overall standings. The former FIA European Champion also won the WRC Masters Cup category for drivers over 50 years of age. It was the fourth category win for the Kremers this season, and due to the accident of their main rival Mauro Miele (who also competes in a Fabia RS Rally2), they managed to significantly increase their lead in the category standings.
The excellent performance of the Škoda crews was then emphasized by Gus Greensmith from Toksport WRT. He started outside the points standings in Latvia, as he did not have the event nominated among his seven rally points, but fourth place in the RC2 class is a promising performance ahead of the upcoming Rally Finland.
This rally is one of the most attractive for spectators and starts on August 1 in the Finnish town of Jyväskylä! Rally Finland is known for its fast sections with lots of jumps. From the start, it's all about the full-on driving and every hundredth really counts. Don't miss this great spectacle and follow the results of the Škoda crews with us from the very beginning of the rally on the Škoda Motorsport social media (Instagram, Facebook)!
