The World Rally Championship (WRC) is a rallying series organised by the FIA, culminating with a champion driver, co-driver and manufacturer. The driver's world championship and manufacturer's world championship are separate championships, but based on the same point system. The series currently consists of 14 three-day events driven on surfaces ranging from gravel and tarmac to snow and ice. Each rally is split into 15–25 special stages which are run against the clock on closed roads.
Richard Alexander Burns was a British rally driver who won the 2001 World Rally Championship, having previously finished runner-up in the series in 1999 and 2000. Born in Reading, Berkshire, he also helped Mitsubishi to the world manufacturers' title in 1998, and Peugeot in 2002. His co-driver in his whole career was Robert Reid. Burns was known by his smooth, methodical driving style, which was unusual for such a young driver of his generation. He was the patron for the Under 17 Car Club, of which he was an ex-Member.
Carlos Sainz Cenamor is a Spanish rally driver. He won the World Rally Championship drivers' title with Toyota in 1990 and 1992, and finished runner-up four times. Constructors' world champions to have benefited from Sainz are Subaru (1995), Toyota (1999) and Citroën. In the 2018 season he is one of the official drivers of the Team Peugeot Total.
Ari Pieti Uolevi Vatanen is a Finnish rally driver turned politician and a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) from 1999 to 2009. Vatanen won the World Rally Championship drivers' title in 1981 and the Paris Dakar Rally four times. Since 2013 Vatanen has been the President of the Estonian Autosport Union.
The Ford RS200 is a mid-engined, four-wheel drive sports car that was produced by Ford Motorsport in Boreham, UK, from 1984 to 1986. The road-going RS200 was the basis for Ford's Group B rally car and was designed to comply with FIA homologation regulations, which required 200 parts kits to be produced and at least one road-legal car to be assembled. It was first displayed to the public at the Belfast Motor Show.
Tommi Antero Mäkinen is a Finnish racing executive and former driver. He is the team principal of the Toyota Gazoo Racing team, which competes in the World Rally Championship (WRC).
Marcus Ulf Johan Grönholm is a Finnish former rally and rallycross driver, being part of a family of the Swedish-speaking population of Finland lineage. His son, Niclas Grönholm, is an upcoming FIA World Rallycross Championship driver. Grönholm's nicknames are either "Bosse" or "Magic Marcus". Driving for Peugeot, he won the World Rally Championship in 2000 and 2002. After Peugeot withdrew from the World Rally Championship, Grönholm moved to Ford for the 2006 season and placed second in the drivers' world championship, losing the title to Sébastien Loeb by one point. The next year he again placed second, four points behind Loeb. He and his co-driver Timo Rautiainen retired from rallying after the 2007 season but returned to the championship in 2009 driving a private Subaru for a short period of time, and in the 2019 World Rally Championship where he competed in a Toyota Gazoo Racing WRT-maintained Toyota Yaris under the GRX Team banner.
Group B was a set of regulations introduced in 1982 for competition vehicles in sportscar racing and rallying regulated by the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA). The Group B regulations fostered some of the fastest, most powerful, and most sophisticated rally cars ever built and is commonly referred to as the golden era of rallying. However, a series of major accidents, some of them fatal, were blamed on their outright speed and lack of crowd control at events. After the death of Henri Toivonen and his co-driver Sergio Cresto in the 1986 Tour de Corse, the FIA disestablished the class, dropped its previous plans to replace it by Group S, and instead replaced it as the top-line formula by Group A. The short-lived Group B era has acquired legendary status among rally fans and automobile enthusiasts in general.
Didier Auriol is a French former rally driver.
The 2001 theAA.com MSA British Touring Car Championship season was the 44th British Touring Car Championship (BTCC) season and marked the beginning of a new era of lower-cost rules and regulations for the series.
François Delecour is a French rally driver.
The 1997 World Rally Championship was the 25th season of the FIA World Rally Championship. The season saw many changes in the championship. Most notably, Group A was partially replaced by the World Rally Car with manufacturers given the option which regulations to construct to. One inherent benefit to manufacturers by adopting WRC regulations was removing the need to mass-produce road-going versions of the cars that they competed with, under the previous rules for homologation. This meant that vehicles such as the Escort RS Cosworth and Subaru Impreza Turbo no longer had to be mass-produced for general sale in order to compete at World Championship level, and thus acting as a means of attracting increased competition and involvement by manufacturers. In the few years that follow, the Championship saw the added presence of WRC cars from companies such as Hyundai, Seat, Citroen, and Peugeot, who would all compete under WRC regulations without having to manufacture equivalent specialised road cars for public sale. Both Ford and Subaru switched to WRC in 1997, except Mitsubishi who stayed with Group A to maintain the links to their Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution road cars. Subaru's transition was much more gradual for similar reasons with the early Subaru Impreza WRCs still largely Group A in nature.
The Ford World Rally Team, also known as the Ford Motor Co. Team prior to 2005, is Ford Motor Company's full factory World Rally Championship team. In its current form, it has been a competitor since the 1997 season, when Ford Motor Company's motorsport arm selected the Malcolm Wilson Motorsport company to run its factory team, entering the Ford Escort World Rally Car. The new team took their first victory in the 1997 Acropolis Rally.
Peugeot 206 WRC is a World Rally Car based on the Peugeot 206. It was used by Peugeot Sport, Peugeot's factory team, in the World Rally Championship from 1999 to 2003. The car brought Peugeot the manufacturers' world title three years in a row from 2000 to 2002. Marcus Grönholm won the drivers' title in 2000 and 2002.
Guy Wilks is a British rally driver. Wilks started rallying at the age of 19, but currently drives for JRM in the FIA World Rallycross Championship. In 2011 Wilks drove for Peugeot UK in the Intercontinental Rally Challenge. In 2012 he did not compete.
The Ford Escort RS Cosworth is a sports derivative and the 1st 2500 were rally homologation special of the fifth generation European Ford Escort. It was designed to qualify as a Group A car for the World Rally Championship, in which it competed between 1993 and 1998. It was available as a road car from 1992–96 in very limited numbers. The smaller turbo cars were not F.I.A recognised and only the first 2500 cars made before 1 Jan 1993 are in fact 'Homologation special versions." It was instantly recognisable due to its large "whale tail" rear spoiler. The main selling point was the Cosworth YBT, a highly tunable turbocharged 1,994 cc (2.0 L) with a bore x stroke of 90.8 mm × 77 mm Inline-four engine which had an output of 227 PS in standard trim. Tuning companies have achieved power outputs of over 1,000 bhp. The car was widely acknowledged to have excellent handling.
Peugeot Sport is the department of French carmaker Peugeot responsible for motorsport activities.
The FIA 2-Litre World Rally Cup was a sub-section of the World Rally Championship from 1993 to 1999. It involved mostly 1,600 cc (97.6 cu in) or 2,000 cc (122.0 cu in), naturally aspirated, front wheel drive cars. The series was discontinued due to high costs, and the new Super 2000 class was amalgamated into the Production World Rally Championship, whilst the 1600cc cars were generally modified for usage in the Super 1600 class, which formed the basis of the Junior World Rally Championship in 2001. The most successful manufacturer was SEAT, who won the title three times in a row with their SEAT Ibiza Kit Car.
The 2000 Mobil 1 British Rally Championship was won by Finland's Marko Ipatti in a Group N Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution 6 ahead of Vauxhall drivers Mark Higgins and Neil Wearden. The 1600cc category championship was won by Proton's Mats Andersson with the Group N title going to Gavin Cox. This was the last year that the championship ran to the F2 regulations.
Martin Rowe is a British and Manx rally driver who won the British Rally Championship in 1998, the British Formula Rally Championship in 2001, Production World Rally Championship in 2003 and the Chinese Rally Championship in 2006.
