1 KING COLIN CONQUERS THE WRC SUMMIT
Other rally drivers wanted to be him and millions of gameplaying teens wanted to be like him. Colin McRae bestrode the World Rally Championship for more than a decade.
The lad from Lanark’s path to the summit of motorsport was written in the stars. Son of British Rally title winner Jimmy, his route started with a Vauxhall Nova and quickly propelled him through the UK rallying scene and into the Subaru World Rally Team in 1993. Two years later, he stood on top of the world at Chester Racecourse after a tempestuous battle with his highly experienced team-mate Carlos Sainz.
Only two of his 25 WRC victories came during that title winning campaign. He was more successful in his final two seasons at Subaru with three and four victories in 1996 and 1997, but the outright crown eluded him.
His final year with the Japanese marque was 1998, the same year when the top-selling video game Colin McRae Rally was unleashed on the world, which brought the WRC and the McRae into the living rooms of a whole new generation of fans.
His full-time ride in the WRC came to an end in 2003 after a season with Citroen and, while there were a couple of cameos for Skoda Motorsport and the Kronos team in a Citroen, that was the last that the top-flight would see of him before his death in a helicopter accident in 2007. It was shortly before he was reportedly due to test a Subaru in anticipation of a full-time comeback in 2008.
McRae’s star burned brightly, and the enduring image is of the Scotsman pushing hard at every turn. It is one that is seared on the minds of fans across the world – and there were millions. MJ