Veiby took his first victory in the Norwegian championship

“Incredibly fun to win a Norwegian championship round – especially as it wasn’t decided until the last stage” said Ole Christian Veiby.

It looked like Ole and his co-driver Stig Rune Skjærmoen would have a tough time trying to collect their first Norwegian championship victory. Eyvind Brynildsen had a 15 seconds’ lead over them after the first special stage and even though Ole reduced the gap throughout the rally, Brynildsen were still almost seven seconds up on him going into the final stage.

“With only 6.7 seconds to Eyvind ahead of the final stage, I knew it was possible to catch him. We decided to give it a real go, but the conditions were much more difficult than we expected” he explained.

It was snowing heavily and the youngster from Kongsvinger says he has never driven a stage with that much snow on the road.

“We almost came backwards in the first corner and that’s when I realized that this will be extra challenging. All the snow made it impossible to get a clean run and I’ve never had so many moments in one stage. But luckily we made it through” he said.

In his Skoda Fabia R5, Ole made quite a performance on the Smådøla Syd stage. He took the overall victory by winning the stage with more than 20 seconds. All in all, he won over Eyvind Brynildsen by 14.9 seconds.

“Eyvind had a disadvantage of being the first car on the road, but at the same time it was very difficult conditions for all of us. With a lot of snow and wind, it was pretty extreme. To sum up the event, I would say that we had an almost perfect day. I think I drove well all day” said Ole.

With this weekend’s victory, Ole Christian Veiby finished what can be described as an impressive winter season in great style.

“I’m very pleased with the start of the 2017 season. I’ve taken big steps forward since last year and found a new confidence” he said.