Oliver Solberg open Rally Sweden with the first Stage win in front of a big crowd at The Red Barn Arena.Oliver Solberg immediately showed why he won the season opener in Monte Carlo in this year’s World Rally Championship.
He was red-hot when Rally Sweden 2026 kicked off in Umeå on Thursday evening.
- It was a bit tricky; there weren’t quite the same lines as there usually are, but I had a good grip, and it’s the first time in this car in these conditions, said Solberg.
The relative lack of snow by Umeå standards has been a talking point ahead of this year’s race, and that may also have been what Solberg was referring to. Wider roads, with less snowbanks to lean the car against, will create a super-fast Umeå rally over the weekend.
The driver from Värmland, Sweden’s big hope, showed sharp pace already on the opening stage and steered through Ersmarksberget down to the I20 area at Red Barn Arena fastest of all.
Solberg and his co-driver Eliott Edmondson won Umeå SS1 in 5:53.1. They can head into the night with just under four seconds in hand over last year’s winner and Toyota teammate Elfyn Evans, with a few more tenths back to Takamoto Katsuta.
Toyota therefore seized the psychological advantage ahead of the remaining 17 stages that will frame the 2026 Rally Sweden.
Sami Pajari sits fourth, followed by Hyundai’s leading man Thierry Neuville in fifth, just over 6.7 seconds behind Solberg.
The opening stage, just over five kilometers long, already produced a time gap of more than nine seconds between Solberg and season debutant Esa-Pekka Lappi in seventh place. Behind them, the M-Sport duo of Irishman Josh McErlean and Latvian Martin Sesks were further back, 15.7 and 18.2 seconds behind in eighth and ninth place.
So Solberg stretched the field and created an early separation that could prove decisive as Rally Sweden continues with a stage-intensive Friday in the areas north of Umeå, featuring double runs in Bygdsiljum, Andersvattnet, and the Bäck stages near the E4 highway.
The opening day of Rally Sweden also showed fantastic spectator interest. Despite temperatures of minus 22 degrees Celsius at Red Barn Arena, the horseshoe corner that concludes the stage was nearly full.
Solberg and the rally fans can now look forward to a great rally weekend, with him setting the tone for what is to come.
Rally Sweden är en av 14 deltävlingar i WRC, världsmästerskapen i rally, och det enda utpräglade vinterrallyt. Det är Sveriges största årligen återkommande evenemang med över 100 000 åskådare under fyra dagar och närmare 120 miljoner tv-tittare runt hela världen! Tävlingarna avgörs för första gången i år i Umeå i Västerbotten. Tävlingen har körts sedan 1950 och varit vinterrally sedan 1965. Rally Sweden är känt som en vinterfestival, där publiken kommer förare, bilar och tävlingarna riktigt nära – Closer to Rally.
