The Tragic Story of Rally's Most Fearless Driver

talking about rallying the ungentle and hazardous art of hurtling a car at over a hundred miles an hour along a twisting country lane it's this skill that's made colin mcrae colin mcrae colin mcrae colin mcrae police remained through the night at the scene of the crash near colin mcrae's house in jervis woodley atlantic colin mcrae was a driver that was wired to compete at 11 tenths willing to take risks that others weren't always getting the most out of every car that he drove but what made him a legend wasn't what he did it was how he did it driving every stage with the iconic motto if in doubt flat out however these risks often landed him in trouble gaining a reputation for crashing a lot costing him two world rally championships and ultimately playing a part in his tragic death this is a story of why colin mcrae was one of the world's fastest drivers but ultimately never fulfilled his potential but before we get into this story we need to thank simplisafe for sponsoring this video they make smart home security systems and kindly sent me one to check out they have all kinds of sensors that monitor every window room and door meaning your home is secure the system is also professionally monitored around the clock and can even dispatch the police if needed it was really easy to set up all of the equipment with no drilling or wiring needed and they're also very small sleek and well designed so you don't even notice them to begin securing your home check out simplysafe.com forward slash driver61 thanks to simplisafe for sponsoring this video now back to the rallying colin first showed his flamboyant driving style in 1991 he just won the scottish rally championship and made his debut in a vauxhall nova it was an extremely underpowered car that he thoroughly outperformed earning him results that the car really didn't deserve seriously he was beating sierra costworth's and persia 205s which were the cars to be in at the time and his pace got him noticed and in 1991 prodrive signed him to their eventually iconic subaru program here he won the british rally championship two years in a row in their group a legacy and this success led subaru to enter the world rally championship in the following year with colin as their star driver this was the first time colin's innate need to be absolutely flat out was shown to the world where in the lombard rally only 25 seconds into the run he put the subaru into a ditch the fans actually helped push him out and kept him running starting the trend of calling finishing stages in completely battered cars he's bent and battered but still manages second fastest time on the next stage later that same year in finland he rolled the car seven times in one of his biggest accidents but the car landed on its wheels again so colin immediately restarted the engine and continued to push on only to roll the car again a few minutes later so now subaru knew that colin was always at full throttle they took the approach that it's easier to rein someone in from 110 than it is to get someone from 90 to 100 but it wasn't clear that they ever did rein him in in 1993 in the new zealand rally colin rewarded their confidence by winning his first ever event making him the first british wrc winner for over 17 years and giving subaru their first two now colin's ability to extract the most from the car was down to his very flamboyant driving style entirely committed and carrying more speed through the corners by quite simply leaving no margin absolutely no room for error this meant he would use all of the track and more often nicki grist his co-driver would call no cut in the pace notes only for colin to cut the corner anyway colin could see a line cutting through some bushes so of course in mccrae style he was there just to make up as much time as he could cuts the corner hits a bridge parapet on the inside and we roll in 94 subaru brought a host of changes to the team firstly they replaced the legacy with the now iconic impreza they also signed carlos science senior yep this guy's dad as his teammate he was already a double world champion and a formidable competitor and this was part of subaru's plan to build their team to compete with the likes of toyota and ford who were streaks ahead at the time the fight came to a head in 1995 where colin and carlos were miles ahead of the toyota and the other competition it was an all subaru fight for the title the two personalities in the team couldn't have been more different carlos was calculated and consistent whereas colin was committed but often took it way too far over the season colin had the pace over carlos but two crashes in the first two rounds had put him behind with three rounds left the points were tied and things were heating up colin was pushing as hard as ever trying to win his first world championship and subaru were understandably worried about a crash after all they needed both cars to finish well to win the constructors championship and so dave richards the team principal made the brave choice of calling team orders he ordered colin to slow down and remain behind carlos however it became clear after colin pulled 15 seconds ahead that he was not going to slow down incredibly subaru engineers even jumped in the way of the car to try and slow mcrae down only for colin to keep the throttle pinned and narrowly miss them mccrae was a man that could only drive at 110 but subaru made colin take a time penalty to preserve the running order with the threat of otherwise being out of a job this gave carlos the win at his home rally and left the standings tied for the final round in great britain here colin had early mechanical issues and lost a full two minutes to carlos but this only motivated him more he drove flat out for the remaining stages in an incredible drive he gained back his two minutes as well as 36 seconds on top he was the first ever british wrc champion in 1995 leading carlos science and richard burns in a subaru 1-2-3 in the following two seasons collins struggled coming second in 96 behind toyota's tommy mackin not to mention tommy absolutely dominated the next four years winning four drivers championships in a row this varied success led colin to make a big money move to ford in 1999. it made him the highest paid rally driver of all time however it meant stepping out of the rally-proven subaru into a new and ultimately unproven ford focus it was a car that was lacking in pace and reliability but the problem was made worse by colin overreaching what the car was capable of frequently rolling the ford and wrapping several of them around trees incredibly he only finished three of the 14 rallies in 1999 but it was this win or burst approach that made him a fan favorite granted he didn't always win but he always pushed for the win even if the car wasn't capable of it it wasn't until 2001 that colin got his focus up to speed where after failing to score in the first four rounds he then won consecutively in argentina cyprus and greece it meant that he caught up to richard burns in the title race and went into the final round one point ahead burns in the subaru and mccrae in the fort all he needed to do to win the championship was to beat burns most drivers would have dialed it back and driven a slightly safer race however mcrae wasn't wired for this once again he ignored a don't cut from nicki grist he hit a small hole on the inside of the corner this upset the car and sent it into a violent flip and you just need to look at nikki to see what that meant that was his last real chance at a title and two years later he retired from the wrc [Music] mcrae did go on to succeed in other areas of motorsport he came third in the gt1 class at le mans in 2004 completed the parry dakar rally twice and even designed his own purpose-built rally car he got to test a jordan formula one car and also competed in the x games event in the us however despite being fast he managed to crash the car he did get it going again actually downshifting while he was still upside down and got the car across the line in this race travis pastrana only beat him by one tenth of a second it still seemed like there was much more to come from colin but unfortunately things were cut short on september the 15th 2006 collins helicopter crashed only one mile from his home killing colin his seven-year-old son and two family friends air accident investigators have yet to establish exactly what happened but it is known the aircraft came down just after four o'clock yesterday afternoon with four passengers on board all of whom were killed colin mcrae is known to millions of motorsport fans around the world ultimately he was a driver that lived at 11 10. it's what led to his success in rallying and some of the near misses too however it was what gave him such an appeal to the fans inspiring rally fans including myself across the globe he was an incredible rally winner but not so much a championship winner the slightly conservative risk management side of racing just wasn't in his blood it was either a win or a dnf and that's what made him great you should check out this video where we break down one of the greatest eras in rallying the group b monsters thanks again to simply safe for sponsoring this video and i'll catch you in the next one

Channel: Driver61

Views: 580,002

Rating: 4.9426374 out of 5

Keywords: Formula 1, Driving, Coaching, Motorsport, Engineering, F1, Racing, Incredible Motorsport, Driver61, Colin McRae, Rallying, Rally, Subaru, WRX, WRC, Subaru Impreza, Impreza, 555, world rally championship, world rally championship 2020, group b, group b tribute, Tribute, VOX

Id: bFOyM1K3swc

Length: 9min 58sec (598 seconds)

Published: Thu May 20 2021