The hard part was getting my video to basically not be theirs. I spent 30 minutes mulling over whether to hit publish. Tricky when there’s only one other account of something
@@JoshuaC923 the Whittington brothers one was the best for that. I quoted the same guy they quoted and “you’ve stolen this word for word from VinWiki!” That’s probably the main reason I was hesitant about this one.
Always remember reading somewhere that at one point Colin was late for a check-in ( probably after fixing suspension) and a call went out on local radio for the police to ignore a speeding Blue Impreza. A huge Colin fan and the reason I now own a GC8 homologation Impreza
Man, I've never heard about that, but I sure hope it's true. Such a cool story. Hope you're enjoying the car the way it's meant to be enjoyed (perhaps a little less than Colin often did :D)
Growing up in New Zealand it was such a event just watching McRae go flying past you sideways. He always had so much more corner speed than anyone else. Much like steve Irwin I still remember exactly the moment that I learnt about the helicopter accident. He was my childhood hero and I think I was lucky to see him drive in anger over flowing nz gravel and not just on tv. He really was that damn good
Would you do someday "A look at 1998 WRC championship decider"? That was just pure drama. It was also funny, because Tommi Mäkinen was at airport being interviewed by finnish media of his championship loss when Tommi's mechanic called him via phone to tell him that Carlos' car had caught fire just 200m before finish line and that Tommi was the new champion. There's even a clip of that interview on RUclips
For me this is what separates the really good racers from the best. Those moments you point to and just go '....how?'. My go-to on that has long been Carl 'scariest eyes in Motorsport' Fogarty who's got a few of them in his back catalogue. The one that always sticks out is Monza in 1999, specifically the second race where he was second with half a lap to go, made a mistake and dropped back to third at the first Lesmo. By the time they were out of the second Lesmo he was back to second but with a sizeable gap to make up as they entered Ascari. By the time they left Ascari he was on the back wheel of Colin Edwards' Honda but didn't have the grunt to overtake so went into the Parabolica in second. The finish line for that year had been moved closer to the corner as the bikes could easily draft out of Parabolica to leave the leader a sitting duck so it was all over. Only no-one told Foggy. He used every inch of the track, the old track outside that and almost the grass on the outer edge of the corner to get the power on and crossed the line right beside Edwards. The transponder data listed Edwards as the winner by 5 thousandths of a second.... for most of the cool down lap until the positions were swapped following a literal photo finish. Foggy had got it by the width not of a wheel but a tyre. Coincidentally this also led to one of my all time favourite podium interviews with Edwards being asked about Foggy maybe retiring and replying with a tongue in cheek 'Yeah, old bastard keeps going don't he?'. Foggy instantly replying with "He's a world champion in the future... but not this year."
@@AidanMillward That's why we loved him, still do, RIP Colin!!! He could have been a bit more cautious on occasion, win more races, more titles, but then he wouldn't have been Colin or why we tuned in or turned up in person to watch him!!!
@@mattpotter8725 it is interesting seeing people’s faces when you explain that they had to peel his subaru or fiesta from around a tree more often than he won rallies though.
@@AidanMillward You know back in the day before there was internet and I was just a kid you just didn't get the coverage like you do today. You got maybe the RAC Rally, maybe a few others on TV and that was it. I bet he must have driven his team bosses crazy (no pun intended), but then as you can now see he did deliver as well, getting podiums and finishing high up in the standings on many occasions. It is funny watching you describe how he used a piece of wood to fix his car on the roadside. That kind of thing is just alien to most of the kids today, and maybe even many of the drivers, partly because the cars are more advanced and can't be fixed like this, couldn't do this. I don't know if this is the case but it must be why whenever I'm watching rallying today on TV when I can has problems, unless it's a puncture or minor mechanical problem, the car is almost instantly out of the rally. While you're there, can I ask you a question that popped into my mind watching this, and also my memories of playing Collin McCrae's WRC on the PC, but you do quite a bit of SIM racing but no rally sim racing (maybe you do and I just haven't seen it, or you just don't post it on your channel). It's there a reason for this? It's it just you are more interested in track racing, maybe it doesn't exist to be able to complete online, maybe you need a different rig setup. In any case if it is out there I'd love to see you doing some. I am aware it's a very different skill. I was in awe of watching the rally drivers in their turbo charged really cars manoeuvre their cars through gates, round tight corners, and through water at places like Chatsworth and Sutton Park back in the day!!! Those were the days!!!
I really love and appreciate your videos on rally racing. Being from the States, we never got much coverage at all of the wrc. We got a few of the video games and I remember playing them a few times and hearing a few things about McRae and his driving style. I wish I could have seen some of this amazing stuff as it happened, but your telling of it, with such passion and great information, has gotten me to search RUclips for not only old rally videos, but old F1 races and sports cars as well. Here we pretty much only had NASCAR and dirt track oval racing, which I was very into, oh and let me not forget drag racing, there was pretty good coverage of that as well. We missed out on so much good racing going on across the pond and down under. One of my favorite things to watch is the old races, as well as the old cars racing now on Mt. Panorama. Man that is some exciting stuff. Thank you once again for a great video and for replying to your fans in the comments. You are one of my top 3 RUclipsrs and still the only person I support on a monthly basis (wish I could do more for you, but things are tight) and the only RUclipsr that has ever responded to one of my comments. Keep up the amazing work, you are doing a great job. Looking forward to seeing more from you.
I remember watching this one live, or as live as rally coverage got in those days. Colin inexorably catching Carlos stage after stage. I recall one of the short interviews at the end of a stage with Carlos, before Colin had passed him. Asked something like what he was going to do about Colin and I remember just how defeated Carlos looked. He was giving it everything and yet it still seemed inevitable that Colin would catch and pass him. Nice little summary, and thanks for those links I'll definitely check em out.
There's a brilliant Group B documentary on Daily motion that i just watched called Madness on Wheels. Probably the best I've seen on the subject. I didn't really watch the McRae era of rallying to be honest, but I've started to watch documentaries about that time.
Interestingly, just yesterday I was thinking of the 1995 Catalunya rally and telling the story to myself in my head after doing some of the last McRae scenarios in Dirt Rally 2.0. What a coincidence. It is such an iconic moment. I'm into collecting scale models of rally cars and want to try making dioramas, I hope I get to do Colin from that Catalunya rally at some point, with the Subaru personnel waving at him frantically in an attempt to slow him down! Just some notes: I'd say it was actually a fair call from David Richards. Not only he did it for the sake of the constructor's championship and securing the 1-2-3, but Sainz winning with McRae second would (and eventually did) put them level on points ahead of the RAC Rally finale. That being said, with the constructor's title sealed, the two could (and did) have a fair fight, starting level on points and not having to worry about any team orders. The better driver in the RAC gets the title (which is still a bit of advantage for Colin, since he's on the home ground). As for the trying to stop McRae moment, I saw an onboard of it and you can clearly hear Colin briefly hesitates and lifts the gas pedal, upon which Derek Ringer very calmly says "Just keep going". It was in the Red Bull mini film called McRae vs Sainz. This was also where Derek said he takes full responsibility. What a legend, those are words of a real man. Yes, last year, his record of being the youngest WRC champion was smashed to pieces by Kalle Rovanpera (Colin was 25 something, Kalle was 22 and 1 day exactly).
Was up in Cumbria the past week, about 10-20 miles from Kielder, still an awe inspiring place and I'm old school enough to remember the flat out stages through the forests. I do miss the blasts up north really...
@@AidanMillward Having doen the roads to/around Penrith in a ully workin car, and knowing how they are...I don't een want to think about what Colin had to go through, and how easy it is to get lost up there if your pace notes/directions are of, on at lest one road the signs aren't easy to spot at all. Colin was absolutely amazing for getting to Penrith with a damaged car, esp in November. Oh it's a beautiful, if, affluent part of the world. Lakes is fantastic. I do wish the rally would e a national one again tbh
Have you made a review video about the whole of Group B?? I've seen the Toivenen video, absolutely brilliant, and I'd love to see a longer review video about it. I've seen other videos about the subject, but it would be so much better with your inimitable style. That's something I'd pay to watch!!
Derek about Catalunia some yrs later: "David told us to book late at last time check or we wont get a car for RAC"... Colin and Davids relationship had lots of ups and downs but they really appreciated each other and David was the one who would give him a seat for 2008...
Missed when the wrc used to go through the mountains on many stages right behind my house on all sides, resolven on 1 side, Rhondda on another, Bryn/Margam the otherside was great. You meet alot of Scandinavian in their motorhomes and vans all offering lifts up to the stage or something to drink.
It's well worth listening to the podcast Chris Harris did with Nicky Grist. Nicky's a proper raconteur, and some very illuminating talking points that Nicky mentions
Total times for the whole event: McRae: 5h 9m 19s Sainz: 5h 9m 55s Burns: 5h 15m 58s Alastair McRae also finished 4th on 5h 20m 34s in the former Malcolm Wilson Escort Cosworth M10MWM, by then stripped of its Michelin Pilot livery.
I keep saying that if Loeb had his time frame in the 90 by no means could have achieved those results, first for cars, where they were inconsistent, and second because of the drivers, where in the next decade they all were old and retired, and a still young driver retired by medical problems, yeah, Burns. The fact that Gronholm equaled Loebs speed while Gronholm was close to retire supports my point.
Citroen were all in on Loeb, that to me was the key. Very similar to the Brawn/Todd era Schumacher. They literally built and set up the Xsara around his driving style. The very clever differentials they were running at the time allowed Loeb to drive his very tarmac-like "keep it as straight as possible " style and at least match the fastest guys on gravel and then dominate them on tarmac. I agree that Loeb wouldn't have been as good in the 90s, but not because of the competition but rather because of the cars. The Gr.A cars had to be manhandled to go fast. Again, not saying this to diminish Loeb, or to say that he couldn't do it, just a perspective. As for Gronholm, I agree. He was kind of the reverse of Loeb. The Peugeots were a great gravel and tarmac car and the cars' tech as well as the setup work done by actual tarmac specialists like Panizzi and Delecour allowed Marcus to be good enough of tarmac and then dominate gravel events (however still with the occasional driver error). The key to Loeb's success IMO, was that his driving style (along with his unique, very precise pacenotes) made him one of the least error-prone drivers and helped the cars durability and reliability throughout a rally event. That consistency alone would've won him more than a few titles but as the years went on he actually got faster while keeping up the errorless drives.
@@randomfaca Agree, but also when the Focus MK2 was released and the last year of Xsara and then the C4, those cars were fast in every rally and Gronhölm and Loeb challenged, resulting in a technical draw between them two at the last of those two championships, however in the 90s you could see a car fast in Argentina and then in Greece way off the pace, they were so inconsistent rally after rally.
I remember press media those days saying someghing like "David Richards tricks" like in 94, but in this time touching the turbo of some former driver of his team. And there is a comparison for 500 metres or something like that where the difference in speed was inmense.
I see why the TEAM does it, but I also sympathise with the Drive who has to capitulate, most of the time for no good reason other than the "status" of their team mate.
Yeah I remember staying up till the early hours to catch the motorsports section on TV (ITV or channel 4 I think?) in the years following this. Sucked when all the manufacturers started withdraw. Bets on Kalle Rovanpera becoming the next Seb Loeb?
@@shig.bitz.3205 it certainly was, here you go the top gear rally team coverage of the 1995 RAC, A friend of mine was camera crew. Typical internet isn’t it that the person who doesn’t know tells the person who does that they’re wrong, when they are wrong themselves. ruclips.net/video/yzKbNB_WcZI/видео.html
@@simonrook5743 lol bit sensitive aren't we mate. If you read my comment you'd know this is about 10 years before the era I'm talking about as I said the years following the events talked about in this video, so no it still wasn't Top Gear and even if it was I still wouldn't look like an ass because literally nobody cares, I'm only commenting to help this channels algorithm. Fuck sake
@@shig.bitz.3205 It was Top Gear, it’s was BBC2, don’t care what subjectively stupid excuse you have, it was a fact and you told me I was wrong. Trying to pursued you not to be such an F wit in future really, but if you want to carry on being one, so be it. I was trying to help as you said ITV or 4 which is clearly wasn’t.
It's crazy how the British embraced rallying when their pilots won their championships. While in France no one gives an eff about the sport, when we had the two Sebastians annihilate all competition. That's sad.
In fairness it's maybe not surprising it doesn't take much to get us Brits enthusiastic about a sport that involves hurling souped-up daily drivers down crap roads in often appalling weather where the tool kit for any repairs includes nearby logs and unlimited swearing....
Rallying has always been a niche in the UK. If anything it's less of a niche in France, at least in the 90s anyway; the tarmac rally war between Renault, Citroen, and Peugeot resulted with big bucks thrown in by those manufacturers, to the point where they made the WRC teams cry around 96/97 because they were being beat by 'lesser' cars on tarmac rallies, just for Peugeot and Citroen to say 'k', and respectively join the WRC in 1999 and 2001, and wipe the floor with everyone for a decade, starting breifly with Gronholm at Peugeot, and then for Loeb to make all the other manufacturers rage quit bar Ford.
I was service in timekeeper just before the second run through sweetlamb/hafren. Carlos, running first on the road arrives, jumps out of the car, starts telling the service crew what he wants doing to the car once he has booked in, all in a pretty animated way, until he sees Colin, who is in the queue behind Carlos, apparently fast asleep sitting behind the wheel. Now, to this day i don’t know if Colin was genuinely asleep, or it was a deliberate bit of gamesmanship….
Love your work but I have to take issue with your fact that Britain only went "rally mad" when McRae won the RAC. I was a teenager when "Group B" was a thing, I think rallying was more popular then, McRae & co reintroduced it for the next generation........ maybe? 🤷
I think Group B can be considered a special case to... well, anything really. Possibly the high bar for motoring insanity at least in actual organised competition and in a (relatively) accessible sport rather than the 'insert kidney here' costs to go watch, say, F1. I mean it's the series that saw a racing version of the Austin Metro created, what more proof do you need that sanity had left the building? ;-)
Here's the thing about the Subaru team orders drama. I don't get why Colin had to take the time penalty at the end of the Catalunya rally. Yes he had been a bit of a naughty boy, but Carlos didn't want the team orders and they had both finished when all is said and done, so why just not let Colin keep the win
Because Colin was told specifically to not race Carlos but did it anyway. His dad made him see sense and reminded him he worked for Prodrive and Dave Richard first and would have likely been fired if he’d decided to go out and win the rally.
No, that was 1998, the same rally as Carlos Sainz Toyota engine blew up 500 meters from the finish of the last stage, in a very cruel twist of fate, which meant that Mäkinen took the title in 1998 as well.
@@fontheking5 Just from reading about these two crazy incidents, I need to know what rally this was. Seems like it might've been one of those classics.
Fernando is faster than you is 2010? 13 years by my count
Could have sworn it was 2013. Ah well. Point remains
Same thought, had to check the video was 3hrs ago and not 3years ago. Was very confused for a second.
@@AidanMillward It was 2010, exactly one year to the day since Massa suffered his injury. Just to show Ferrari really know how to treat their drivers.
@@aaronspringer8293 blame that two year gap for the pandemic that has got that two year blank 🤣
@@fix0the0spade they destroyed any hope he had of a successful comeback with that message.
What Dirtfish is doing for rally is great
The hard part was getting my video to basically not be theirs. I spent 30 minutes mulling over whether to hit publish.
Tricky when there’s only one other account of something
@@AidanMillward i think you did a good job!
@@JoshuaC923 the Whittington brothers one was the best for that. I quoted the same guy they quoted and “you’ve stolen this word for word from VinWiki!”
That’s probably the main reason I was hesitant about this one.
@@AidanMillward i see!
Always remember reading somewhere that at one point Colin was late for a check-in ( probably after fixing suspension) and a call went out on local radio for the police to ignore a speeding Blue Impreza. A huge Colin fan and the reason I now own a GC8 homologation Impreza
Man, I've never heard about that, but I sure hope it's true. Such a cool story.
Hope you're enjoying the car the way it's meant to be enjoyed (perhaps a little less than Colin often did :D)
I heard about that from here in New Zealand ,,cool if it was true ,,
@@andrewdillon7837 At least it not just me
Excellent story teller. Love this channel.
Growing up in New Zealand it was such a event just watching McRae go flying past you sideways. He always had so much more corner speed than anyone else. Much like steve Irwin I still remember exactly the moment that I learnt about the helicopter accident. He was my childhood hero and I think I was lucky to see him drive in anger over flowing nz gravel and not just on tv. He really was that damn good
Used to have the Colin McRae rally come through my city. Was fantastic seeing the service site and watching them go through the Dunkeld forests.
Would you do someday "A look at 1998 WRC championship decider"? That was just pure drama. It was also funny, because Tommi Mäkinen was at airport being interviewed by finnish media of his championship loss when Tommi's mechanic called him via phone to tell him that Carlos' car had caught fire just 200m before finish line and that Tommi was the new champion. There's even a clip of that interview on RUclips
For me this is what separates the really good racers from the best. Those moments you point to and just go '....how?'.
My go-to on that has long been Carl 'scariest eyes in Motorsport' Fogarty who's got a few of them in his back catalogue. The one that always sticks out is Monza in 1999, specifically the second race where he was second with half a lap to go, made a mistake and dropped back to third at the first Lesmo. By the time they were out of the second Lesmo he was back to second but with a sizeable gap to make up as they entered Ascari. By the time they left Ascari he was on the back wheel of Colin Edwards' Honda but didn't have the grunt to overtake so went into the Parabolica in second. The finish line for that year had been moved closer to the corner as the bikes could easily draft out of Parabolica to leave the leader a sitting duck so it was all over. Only no-one told Foggy. He used every inch of the track, the old track outside that and almost the grass on the outer edge of the corner to get the power on and crossed the line right beside Edwards. The transponder data listed Edwards as the winner by 5 thousandths of a second.... for most of the cool down lap until the positions were swapped following a literal photo finish. Foggy had got it by the width not of a wheel but a tyre.
Coincidentally this also led to one of my all time favourite podium interviews with Edwards being asked about Foggy maybe retiring and replying with a tongue in cheek 'Yeah, old bastard keeps going don't he?'. Foggy instantly replying with "He's a world champion in the future... but not this year."
+12 at Grizedale was special. A notorius section that caught more than a few drivers out. Retirements here and 'Killer Kielder' were fierce stages!
Think it was there the previous two years Colin had wiped out driving too fast.
@@AidanMillward That's why we loved him, still do, RIP Colin!!! He could have been a bit more cautious on occasion, win more races, more titles, but then he wouldn't have been Colin or why we tuned in or turned up in person to watch him!!!
@@mattpotter8725 it is interesting seeing people’s faces when you explain that they had to peel his subaru or fiesta from around a tree more often than he won rallies though.
@@AidanMillward You know back in the day before there was internet and I was just a kid you just didn't get the coverage like you do today. You got maybe the RAC Rally, maybe a few others on TV and that was it. I bet he must have driven his team bosses crazy (no pun intended), but then as you can now see he did deliver as well, getting podiums and finishing high up in the standings on many occasions.
It is funny watching you describe how he used a piece of wood to fix his car on the roadside. That kind of thing is just alien to most of the kids today, and maybe even many of the drivers, partly because the cars are more advanced and can't be fixed like this, couldn't do this. I don't know if this is the case but it must be why whenever I'm watching rallying today on TV when I can has problems, unless it's a puncture or minor mechanical problem, the car is almost instantly out of the rally.
While you're there, can I ask you a question that popped into my mind watching this, and also my memories of playing Collin McCrae's WRC on the PC, but you do quite a bit of SIM racing but no rally sim racing (maybe you do and I just haven't seen it, or you just don't post it on your channel). It's there a reason for this? It's it just you are more interested in track racing, maybe it doesn't exist to be able to complete online, maybe you need a different rig setup. In any case if it is out there I'd love to see you doing some. I am aware it's a very different skill. I was in awe of watching the rally drivers in their turbo charged really cars manoeuvre their cars through gates, round tight corners, and through water at places like Chatsworth and Sutton Park back in the day!!! Those were the days!!!
I really love and appreciate your videos on rally racing. Being from the States, we never got much coverage at all of the wrc. We got a few of the video games and I remember playing them a few times and hearing a few things about McRae and his driving style. I wish I could have seen some of this amazing stuff as it happened, but your telling of it, with such passion and great information, has gotten me to search RUclips for not only old rally videos, but old F1 races and sports cars as well. Here we pretty much only had NASCAR and dirt track oval racing, which I was very into, oh and let me not forget drag racing, there was pretty good coverage of that as well. We missed out on so much good racing going on across the pond and down under. One of my favorite things to watch is the old races, as well as the old cars racing now on Mt. Panorama. Man that is some exciting stuff. Thank you once again for a great video and for replying to your fans in the comments. You are one of my top 3 RUclipsrs and still the only person I support on a monthly basis (wish I could do more for you, but things are tight) and the only RUclipsr that has ever responded to one of my comments. Keep up the amazing work, you are doing a great job. Looking forward to seeing more from you.
I remember watching this one live, or as live as rally coverage got in those days. Colin inexorably catching Carlos stage after stage.
I recall one of the short interviews at the end of a stage with Carlos, before Colin had passed him. Asked something like what he was going to do about Colin and I remember just how defeated Carlos looked. He was giving it everything and yet it still seemed inevitable that Colin would catch and pass him.
Nice little summary, and thanks for those links I'll definitely check em out.
Great video, especially the content and Sebastian Loeb coming along and ruining it all!!!
There's a brilliant Group B documentary on Daily motion that i just watched called Madness on Wheels. Probably the best I've seen on the subject. I didn't really watch the McRae era of rallying to be honest, but I've started to watch documentaries about that time.
yay mcrae content ❤
Imagine giving team orders to Colin McRae of all people. Every time I hear more about this guy, the more I'm convinced he was just built different.
Interestingly, just yesterday I was thinking of the 1995 Catalunya rally and telling the story to myself in my head after doing some of the last McRae scenarios in Dirt Rally 2.0. What a coincidence. It is such an iconic moment. I'm into collecting scale models of rally cars and want to try making dioramas, I hope I get to do Colin from that Catalunya rally at some point, with the Subaru personnel waving at him frantically in an attempt to slow him down!
Just some notes:
I'd say it was actually a fair call from David Richards. Not only he did it for the sake of the constructor's championship and securing the 1-2-3, but Sainz winning with McRae second would (and eventually did) put them level on points ahead of the RAC Rally finale. That being said, with the constructor's title sealed, the two could (and did) have a fair fight, starting level on points and not having to worry about any team orders. The better driver in the RAC gets the title (which is still a bit of advantage for Colin, since he's on the home ground).
As for the trying to stop McRae moment, I saw an onboard of it and you can clearly hear Colin briefly hesitates and lifts the gas pedal, upon which Derek Ringer very calmly says "Just keep going". It was in the Red Bull mini film called McRae vs Sainz. This was also where Derek said he takes full responsibility. What a legend, those are words of a real man.
Yes, last year, his record of being the youngest WRC champion was smashed to pieces by Kalle Rovanpera (Colin was 25 something, Kalle was 22 and 1 day exactly).
I’ve got a signed Burns 1999 Scoob on the way that I randomly found on eBay while doing some research for the last rally video 🤣
Was up in Cumbria the past week, about 10-20 miles from Kielder, still an awe inspiring place and I'm old school enough to remember the flat out stages through the forests. I do miss the blasts up north really...
My parents live up near there. Should probably visit for myself.
@@AidanMillward Having doen the roads to/around Penrith in a ully workin car, and knowing how they are...I don't een want to think about what Colin had to go through, and how easy it is to get lost up there if your pace notes/directions are of, on at lest one road the signs aren't easy to spot at all. Colin was absolutely amazing for getting to Penrith with a damaged car, esp in November.
Oh it's a beautiful, if, affluent part of the world. Lakes is fantastic. I do wish the rally would e a national one again tbh
WRC needs multiple divisions. Different types of cars with different types of power with different types of cost. Not feeder series, just different
Have you made a review video about the whole of Group B?? I've seen the Toivenen video, absolutely brilliant, and I'd love to see a longer review video about it. I've seen other videos about the subject, but it would be so much better with your inimitable style. That's something I'd pay to watch!!
Great one and there is always another pun! 😉. Always Aiden
Would love to have seen these two legends battling in Dakar if it wasn’t for that tragic helicopter accident 😢
Derek about Catalunia some yrs later:
"David told us to book late at last time check or we wont get a car for RAC"...
Colin and Davids relationship had lots of ups and downs but they really appreciated each other and David was the one who would give him a seat for 2008...
Missed when the wrc used to go through the mountains on many stages right behind my house on all sides, resolven on 1 side, Rhondda on another, Bryn/Margam the otherside was great. You meet alot of Scandinavian in their motorhomes and vans all offering lifts up to the stage or something to drink.
Liking and commenting for the algorithm :D
Seriously tho, always a pleasure to see a vid in the sub box from this channel!
awesome video
It's well worth listening to the podcast Chris Harris did with Nicky Grist. Nicky's a proper raconteur, and some very illuminating talking points that Nicky mentions
Total times for the whole event:
McRae: 5h 9m 19s
Sainz: 5h 9m 55s
Burns: 5h 15m 58s
Alastair McRae also finished 4th on 5h 20m 34s in the former Malcolm Wilson Escort Cosworth M10MWM, by then stripped of its Michelin Pilot livery.
I keep saying that if Loeb had his time frame in the 90 by no means could have achieved those results, first for cars, where they were inconsistent, and second because of the drivers, where in the next decade they all were old and retired, and a still young driver retired by medical problems, yeah, Burns. The fact that Gronholm equaled Loebs speed while Gronholm was close to retire supports my point.
Citroen were all in on Loeb, that to me was the key. Very similar to the Brawn/Todd era Schumacher. They literally built and set up the Xsara around his driving style. The very clever differentials they were running at the time allowed Loeb to drive his very tarmac-like "keep it as straight as possible " style and at least match the fastest guys on gravel and then dominate them on tarmac.
I agree that Loeb wouldn't have been as good in the 90s, but not because of the competition but rather because of the cars. The Gr.A cars had to be manhandled to go fast. Again, not saying this to diminish Loeb, or to say that he couldn't do it, just a perspective.
As for Gronholm, I agree. He was kind of the reverse of Loeb. The Peugeots were a great gravel and tarmac car and the cars' tech as well as the setup work done by actual tarmac specialists like Panizzi and Delecour allowed Marcus to be good enough of tarmac and then dominate gravel events (however still with the occasional driver error).
The key to Loeb's success IMO, was that his driving style (along with his unique, very precise pacenotes) made him one of the least error-prone drivers and helped the cars durability and reliability throughout a rally event. That consistency alone would've won him more than a few titles but as the years went on he actually got faster while keeping up the errorless drives.
@@randomfaca Agree, but also when the Focus MK2 was released and the last year of Xsara and then the C4, those cars were fast in every rally and Gronhölm and Loeb challenged, resulting in a technical draw between them two at the last of those two championships, however in the 90s you could see a car fast in Argentina and then in Greece way off the pace, they were so inconsistent rally after rally.
I CANNAE AGREE WITH YOOZ, WEE DAVEY.
I remember press media those days saying someghing like "David Richards tricks" like in 94, but in this time touching the turbo of some former driver of his team. And there is a comparison for 500 metres or something like that where the difference in speed was inmense.
A true race car driver
What a great story
top notch.. Mcrae was spectacular..!
Wait?...Loeb ruined rallying for everyone?...
Going to need a video explaining this...
If your interested I have some incar footage of Colin in Australia on my channel.
Like Max Backstabben?
McRae’s reason was more “we’re racing drivers why should I slow down?” As opposed to “I run this team ya fuckers”
What Prodrive did to McRae was absolutely pathetic.
I see why the TEAM does it, but I also sympathise with the Drive who has to capitulate, most of the time for no good reason other than the "status" of their team mate.
Yeah I remember staying up till the early hours to catch the motorsports section on TV (ITV or channel 4 I think?) in the years following this.
Sucked when all the manufacturers started withdraw.
Bets on Kalle Rovanpera becoming the next Seb Loeb?
BBC2 hosted by Top Gear...
@@simonrook5743 Haha no Top Gear definitely wasn't the place to go for motorsports news
@@shig.bitz.3205 it certainly was, here you go the top gear rally team coverage of the 1995 RAC, A friend of mine was camera crew.
Typical internet isn’t it that the person who doesn’t know tells the person who does that they’re wrong, when they are wrong themselves.
ruclips.net/video/yzKbNB_WcZI/видео.html
@@simonrook5743 lol bit sensitive aren't we mate. If you read my comment you'd know this is about 10 years before the era I'm talking about as I said the years following the events talked about in this video, so no it still wasn't Top Gear and even if it was I still wouldn't look like an ass because literally nobody cares, I'm only commenting to help this channels algorithm. Fuck sake
@@shig.bitz.3205 It was Top Gear, it’s was BBC2, don’t care what subjectively stupid excuse you have, it was a fact and you told me I was wrong. Trying to pursued you not to be such an F wit in future really, but if you want to carry on being one, so be it. I was trying to help as you said ITV or 4 which is clearly wasn’t.
Fernando is faster than you was in July 2010. That being said, next month marks 10 years since Multi 21 happened
It's crazy how the British embraced rallying when their pilots won their championships. While in France no one gives an eff about the sport, when we had the two Sebastians annihilate all competition. That's sad.
In fairness it's maybe not surprising it doesn't take much to get us Brits enthusiastic about a sport that involves hurling souped-up daily drivers down crap roads in often appalling weather where the tool kit for any repairs includes nearby logs and unlimited swearing....
Rallying has always been a niche in the UK. If anything it's less of a niche in France, at least in the 90s anyway; the tarmac rally war between Renault, Citroen, and Peugeot resulted with big bucks thrown in by those manufacturers, to the point where they made the WRC teams cry around 96/97 because they were being beat by 'lesser' cars on tarmac rallies, just for Peugeot and Citroen to say 'k', and respectively join the WRC in 1999 and 2001, and wipe the floor with everyone for a decade, starting breifly with Gronholm at Peugeot, and then for Loeb to make all the other manufacturers rage quit bar Ford.
I was service in timekeeper just before the second run through sweetlamb/hafren. Carlos, running first on the road arrives, jumps out of the car, starts telling the service crew what he wants doing to the car once he has booked in, all in a pretty animated way, until he sees Colin, who is in the queue behind Carlos, apparently fast asleep sitting behind the wheel.
Now, to this day i don’t know if Colin was genuinely asleep, or it was a deliberate bit of gamesmanship….
Love your work but I have to take issue with your fact that Britain only went "rally mad" when McRae won the RAC.
I was a teenager when "Group B" was a thing, I think rallying was more popular then, McRae & co reintroduced it for the next generation........ maybe? 🤷
I think Group B can be considered a special case to... well, anything really. Possibly the high bar for motoring insanity at least in actual organised competition and in a (relatively) accessible sport rather than the 'insert kidney here' costs to go watch, say, F1. I mean it's the series that saw a racing version of the Austin Metro created, what more proof do you need that sanity had left the building? ;-)
Here's the thing about the Subaru team orders drama. I don't get why Colin had to take the time penalty at the end of the Catalunya rally. Yes he had been a bit of a naughty boy, but Carlos didn't want the team orders and they had both finished when all is said and done, so why just not let Colin keep the win
Because Colin was told specifically to not race Carlos but did it anyway.
His dad made him see sense and reminded him he worked for Prodrive and Dave Richard first and would have likely been fired if he’d decided to go out and win the rally.
Was it Colin or burns that ran over the photographer who stepped on to the course at a corner? He slowed down for nobody.
That's happened enough times that the answer's probably both.
@@fix0the0spade did a search, its a spectator, new Zealand 1998.
Was this the rally where Makkinen (sp?) was driving on 3 wheels and got pulled by the Fuzz?
No, that was 1998, the same rally as Carlos Sainz Toyota engine blew up 500 meters from the finish of the last stage, in a very cruel twist of fate, which meant that Mäkinen took the title in 1998 as well.
@@fontheking5 Just from reading about these two crazy incidents, I need to know what rally this was. Seems like it might've been one of those classics.
Wow once he didnt crash.
His dad was a far better driver.
In your opening, you forgot to mention Multi 2 - 1 !! 😡 . Not all team orders are followed.
You ever kissed a girl son?
Since I'm married... yes.
@@AidanMillward (Insert Katy Perry song here)
Aidan was polite, that question deserves a rude answer
Why was this even a question?