Thursday 9 February 2006 1600hrs

Pre-event press conference

Daniel Carlsson (DC)
Henning Solberg (HS)
Mika Salo (MS)

Good afternoon, everybody. It’s a pleasure to wish you all welcome to this press conference here at Rally Norway. A special welcome to the drivers on the podium here, Daniel Carlsson, Henning Solberg and Mika Salo.

First to you Daniel. We saw this amazing performance last weekend: can you tell us a little bit about what happened?

DC: Yeah. I finished third in the Swedish Rally, and that was an amazing moment for me and my career. Even to take part in the rally, because even one week before I didn’t know if I could start or not. A huge amount of people put a lot of effort into it and finally I made it, I managed to start.

Yes it was very special. A new car, a new co-driver, no testing. Fastest on the shakedown and then third in the rally.

DC: Yeah for me that’s just beyond. If I had put a dream before the rally I think this would have not been on that side of my expectations, so I’m very happy.

Over to you Mika. It’s been some years since we saw you in Formula One. What have you done the last few years?

MS: Secretly practicing rallying. No, I’ve been doing some GT racing for Maserati the last two years and I started rally exactly a year ago, I got the car and did six rallies. This is my third one on snow. Just learning a little bit all the time.

You are probably the only one here to have driven in Formula One and rally at this level. What can you say about the difference between those sports?

MS: No, rally is completely different. The drivers are totally crazy and it’s impossible to compare them. It’s different, when you always learn on circuits and drive on circuits we do more fine-tuning of the car, there is more maximizing of the car. This is just trusting your co-driver and car control more. It’s completely different, you can’t talk about it on the same day.

Is this for fun or are you really serious about rally?

MS: No for me rally is just for fun and a hobby. After Formula One it’s something to do. Because Formula One is so busy and I was home maybe twenty days of the year. Now I have too many extra days, so I have to spend them somewhere and this is quite a good way to do it. And I have never raced any kind of race car on snow before so at this time of year I do as many rallies as I can and then in the summer – well I tried a couple of rallies last summer and it didn’t work so well. I rolled the car both times and I didn’t like it much for that reason. So I do more snow rallies. We’ll see what happens

DC: And you say we’re crazy!

Thank you so far. Over to you Henning. You have a new car, you have done two rallies this year, how satisfied are you?

HS: Yeah, the last day in Sweden, after a very hard weekend, I got the car much better and I think we can be fast in this rally. If I continue like I ended in Sweden then I think we can try to beat Daniel.

What would you say is the main difference between the Ford you drove last year and this year’s car, the Peugeot?

HS: For me the main difference is the engine, I have a very strong engine and I think that’s the biggest difference.

You will do 12 WRC rallies this year. But this Rally Norway, how big is this for you?

HS: It’s very important, like you see, with Daniel in Sweden it was very important to him to try to go to the podium. And the same for me here, I have to try to win and that’s for me the most important. I cannot see a Swedish driver on the top of the podium here!

OK, that takes us back to you Daniel. You have now done the recce and the shakedown, how are you sitting so far?

DC: For me it’s a bit different from Swedish Rally, it’s more narrow, a lot more twisty and not so fast. But I think the stages will be very good and I think it’s going to be a really brilliant rally.

You think it’s going to be a real battle between Henning and you?

DC: Yeah, for sure, me and Henning had many good battles in the Bozian times so for sure it’s going to be again but I also think Thomas Schie is going to be very quick.

What about your plans for rest of the season?

DC: I don’t know anything about those.

No idea?

DC: No idea. I’m going to watch the Olympics next week when this rally is done.

Back to you Mika. What is your goal for this weekend in Rally Norway?

MS: I think I want to finish the rally and have a lot more kilometers and just learn more. The roads are amazing here. I’ve never seen anything like that before. It’s going to be very difficult for me but I just want to keep it in once piece and finish. It would be very stupid to get stuck somewhere in the snow. And it’s very cold out there so I don’t like that.

And your plans for the rest of the season? Do you have any? Racing or anything like that?

MS: Yeah, I have some. I haven’t signed a contract yet but there’s a few things and I will race something on asphalt.

Henning, I suppose that all the Norwegians would like to see you as the winner here. Do you feel the pressure on you?

HS: Yeah of course I feel the pressure. I hope I don’t fill the whole car with snow again. That’s the important thing.

DC: But he’s fine, in this colour! (pointing to Henning Solberg’s overalls)

HS: But you can see it’s difficult out there, it’s much more difficult roads than in Sweden. For us we are really pushing hard, it’s easy to go out and maybe we have to use the… the… “snøskuffe”…

DC: shovels!

HS: So for us it will be difficult to keep these cars on the road.

Do you have any tactics or is it flat-out from the start?

HS: It’s flat-out from the start and then we’ll see what happens. We get some split times in the car I think so we can see where Daniel is and all these other crazy Norwegians.

DC: Maybe we can put a deal now Henning, if you see me off the road on the first stage, you stop and help me and I’ll do the same for you.

HS: It’s OK.

Questions from the floor:

Have you got one or two shovels in your car, Henning?

HS: You can see what I did last weekend, I tried to do something special for my sponsor. It was meant that I should not be covered in snow but my co-driver was, so I think that if we do the same this weekend then I will get all the snow.

I wish all the three drivers, and all the other drivers, the best of luck in this rally. Thank you all for coming.