Richard Hammond took on Oliver Solberg in Monte Carlo, and reality arrived fast
Author auto.pub |
Published on: 17.03.2026
Richard Hammond decided, once again, to do the thing television audiences secretly expect of him. Get behind the wheel, accept a challenge that sounds just a little too ambitious, and find out just how hard the real elite can hit back. The former Top Gear and The Grand Tour presenter went head to head with WRC driver Oliver Solberg on a Monte Carlo Rally stage. Driving the same Toyota race car, Hammond completed the test in 5 minutes 45 seconds. Solberg did it in 4 minutes 15. The gap said exactly what it needed to say. There is a difference between a famous motoring presenter and a genuine rally driver, and it is not a small one.
For an ordinary driver, Hammond’s time hardly sounds slow. A Monte Carlo Rally stage is not the sort of road where anyone calmly tidies up mistakes between sips of coffee. But Solberg’s 4 minute 15 second run underlined, yet again, the brutal margin between a keen car enthusiast and a driver operating at the highest level of world rallying. Talent matters, of course. So does nerve. And then there is whatever the professionals have that makes the impossible look routine.
