20 BURNS TRIUMPHS IN BATTLE OF BRITAIN
Four drivers had a mathematical chance of winning the 2001 World Rally Championship at the Rally GB finale, and it was Richard Burns who claimed an emotional maiden title.
The season-closer was perhaps one of the most dramatic in WRC history, with nine points separating Ford’s Colin McRae (42), Mitsubishi’s Tommi Makinen (41), Subaru’s Burns (40) and McRae’s team-mate Carlos Sainz (33), an outside bet who needed his rivals to hit trouble.
Without a podium in the first four rounds, Burns found himself in the title hunt after scoring second place finishes in Argentina, Cyprus, Finland and Australia, in addition to his one and only win that year in New Zealand. McRae and Makinen had both endured their fair share of retirements, but each had three wins apiece.
An unusually dry Rally GB, held in the Welsh forests around host city Cardiff, provided plenty of drama. Makinen was first to fall as the four-time champion cut a corner and ripped his front-left suspension from his Lancer on Friday’s first stage.
A puncture for Sainz effectively condensed the title fight into a Battle of Britain between Scotland’s McRae and England’s Burns. McRae pushed from the start, opening up a lead over Peugeot’s Marcus Gronholm, with Burns fourth after three stages. However, McRae’s title hopes were extinguished in spectacular fashion when he cut a corner and hit a hole, sending his Focus into a barrel roll.
Burns almost threw it away after seeing McRae’s damaged Focus at the side of the road. However, he and co-driver Robert Reid held their nerve to finish third, to win what would be the duo’s only world title.
“I drove even worse than my grandma in the last few kilometres but it feels fantastic to be world champion,” said Burns.
19 Unlikely champion Salonen comes from nowhere
The penultimate season of the infamous Group B era produced a somewhat unlikely champion. It had seemed that the 1985 title fight would be between Audi’s Walter Rohrl and Peugeot’s Ari Vatanen, but it was the latter’s team-mate, Timo Salonen, who
