Wales Rally GB

The inaugural event was the 1932 Royal Automobile Club Rally, which was the first major rally of the modern era in Great Britain. Of the 367 crews entered, 341 competitors in unmodified cars started from nine different towns and cities (London, Bath, Norwich, Leamington, Buxton, Harrogate, Liverpool, Newcastle upon Tyne and Edinburgh.)

The Official Programme explained:

Different routes are followed from the nine starting points, each approximately 1,000 miles (1,600 km) long, but all finishing at Torquay. On every route there are four controls in addition to the starting and finishing controls, and these are open for periods varying from seven to four hours. Competitors may report at these controls at any time during the hours of opening. ... At the final control they must check in as near their fixed finishing time as possible, and any considerable deviation from this time results in loss of marks.

As well as completing the route to a time schedule the competitors were required to perform a special test involving slow running, acceleration and braking. Additionally a Concours d'Elegance was held at the finish in Torquay. There was no official winner, although Colonel A. H. Loughborough in a Lanchester 15/18 was recorded as having the fewest penalty points in the decisive test at the finish.[1]

The following year's RAC Rally followed a similar format, but with Hastings as the chosen finish. Over three hundred competitors entered, and this time Miss Kitty Brunel, driving an AC Ace, was the driver with the fewest penalties.

The rally was run annually until 1939, after which the outbreak of the Second World War forced its suspension. However, it resumed in 1951, and has been contested every year since with only two exceptions: 1957 (due to the Suez Crisis) and 1967 (due to the outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease). This latter incident was on the eve of the event, so competitors staged a mock rally at the Bagshot proving ground as consolation for the press and television (ATV had been persuaded to provide major coverage with in-car cameras for the first time).

In 1960, organising secretary Jack Kemsley negotiated with the Forestry Commission to allow a two-mile (3 km) section of forest road in Argyll, Scotland to be used as a competitive section. It proved enormously successful, and the following year forest roads all over the country were opened up to the drivers. This, combined with the introduction of special timing clocks and seeding of entries, secured the rally's future, and cemented its reputation as one of the most gruelling and unpredictable fixtures on the calendar.[2] In 2016 an agreement was reached between the MSA and Natural Resources Wales to continue to use Welsh forest stages for three years.[3]

In 1971, 'spectator stages' were introduced and, by 1975 had become an important part of the event, usually at stately homes and other public venues like Chatsworth House and Sutton Park. The first day was, by then, devoted to these stages. Drivers did not enjoy them, and referred to them disparagingly as "Mickey Mouse stages" because of the lack of challenge they offered,[4][5] but nonetheless they contributed to the results. For example, in 1998 championship leader Tommi Mäkinen crashed out of the rally on one of these stages, and very nearly lost that year's world championship. More recently, they have given way to the 'Super Special Stages', which are equally maligned by the drivers, but just as popular with spectators.

Michèle Mouton at the 1984 rally with an Audi Sport Quattro

The 1986 RAC Rally was the last European event for Group B vehicles. These highly tuned turbocharged cars were to be banned as they were deemed too powerful and dangerous, in light of the various accidents in which they were involved. In the end, the Peugeot 205 T16 Evo. 2s of Timo Salonen, Juha Kankkunen and Mikael Sundström took three of the top four places, with only Markku Alén's second position in the Lancia Delta S4 preventing a monopoly of the podium.[6]

There were 83 finishers out of 150 starters in 1986, compared to year of worst attrition in 1981 when only 54 of the 151 starters reached the end. This was in stark contrast to the early years: in 1938, there were only 6 retirements from 237 starters.

For many years the rally has traditionally been the last round of the World Championship, and therefore has staged many famous down-to-the-wire showdowns.

Until 1989 the event was held without crews performing reconnaissance runs through the route beforehand. From 1990 onwards the format which is now standard in international rallying was adopted.[7]

In 1991 the world championship came down-to-the-wire in the British forests, with Lancia driver Juha Kankkunen edging out Toyota's Carlos Sainz after the Spaniard suffered engine issues and went off the road in Kielder Forest and damaged his car.[8]

One year later and Sainz and Kankkunen returned to the RAC along with Frenchman Didier Auriol to fight for the 1992 title. Auriol's challenge would end with engine failure, and Kankkunen's hopes were also dashed when he went off and damaged his steering on the final day of the rally in southern Scotland. Sainz eventually won the rally and with it claimed his second world title.[9]

In 1995, it was estimated that around 2 million fans lined the forests to witness Scotsman Colin McRae win his second consecutive RAC Rally. In the process he beat teammate Carlos Sainz to take his first and only world title in front of thousands of fans at Chester Racecourse. [10]

McRae would have less fortune in future years; despite winning again in 1997, he was pipped to the title by Finn Tommi Mäkinen by just one point.[11] The Scot would come up short again in 2001 when he crashed out of an early lead, gifting the championship to his English rival Richard Burns.[12]

One of the most dramatic showdowns was 1998, when championship leader Tommi Mäkinen crashed out on one of the first day's spectator stages after his Mitsubishi hit a patch of oil, slid and tore a wheel off. This seemingly handed the title to Toyota's Carlos Sainz. However, in a cruel twist of fate Sainz's engine let go just 300 meters from the finish line of the final stage, meaning that Mäkinen claimed the championship title, with Luis Moya famously throwing his helmet through the car's rear window in frustration.[13]

In 2003, a four-way title fight was narrowed down to just two when Burns was forced to withdraw from the event for medical reasons, which would tragically claim his life two years later, and Carlos Sainz crashed out. In the end, Norwegian Petter Solberg would win the rally ahead of Sébastien Loeb, and consequently beat the Frenchman to claim his only world rally title by just one point.[14]

Wins	Driver
5	Sébastien Ogier
4	Petter Solberg Hannu Mikkola
3
	Juha Kankkunen Timo Mäkinen
	Sébastien Loeb
	Erik Carlsson
	Richard Burns Colin McRae
2
	Roger Clark Ian Appleyard Jack Harrop
	Jari-Matti Latvala Henri Toivonen Marcus Grönholm
	Harry Källström Tom Trana Stig Blomqvist
Carlos Sainz

Wins	Manufacturers
15	Ford
9	Subaru
6	Lancia
5	Saab
	Toyota
4	Volkswagen
	Jaguar
3	Citroën Peugeot
	Audi
2	Mitsubishi

Notes: * Prior to 1953, only class winners were officially recognised, and the overall winners show are the entrant who received the most points (or fewest penalties) in the event. No winners of any kind were recognised in 1935.[18] In 1996, due to the World Rally Championship's event rotation system used from 1994 to 1996, the rally counted only for the FIA 2-Litre World Championship for Manufacturers.