Stars of the Stage

STARS OF THE STAGE When the World Rally Championship first began in 1973, only the car manufacturers fought for a crown; it wasn’t until 1979 that the drivers were recognised with their own world title. They soon made up for lost time, however, and over the past four decades the WRC has been a constant source of drama, heroism and displays of unbelievable skill. So as the Festival celebrates 40 years of the World Rally Drivers’ Championship this weekend, we remember some of those who have fought for and won the sport’s greatest prize STORY BY ANGUS FRAZER Left: Petter Solberg and co-driver Phil Mills celebrate victory in the 2002 Rally GB. Right: Sébastien Ogier powers his Citroën to third in the 2019 Argentine Rally Rallying’s first World Champion proved that while sublime skill and dogged determination are both prerequisites for victory, ruthlessness Björn is not. Described by those who knew him as a true gentleman (and sometimes as a teddy bear), the late Björn Waldegård won the inaugural World Rally Drivers’ Championship in 1979 (prior to that, the competition had Waldegård been held for two years as an FIA ‘Cup for Drivers’, won by Sandro Munari in 1977 and Markku Alén in 1978). All through that season, Waldegård battled Hannu Mikkola, his team-mate not just at Ford in the pace-setting Escort RS but also at Mercedes-Benz. The German company had 1979 hired the duo to pilot the powerful if unwieldy 5.0-litre V8 automatic 450SLC Coupé on the Safari and Ivory Coast events. The year had begun badly for the Swede: a healthy lead on the Monte Carlo was destroyed when rocks were placed in the path of his Escort, leaving Bernard Darniche to sweep to victory in his Lancia Stratos. Waldegård won in Greece and Canada but team-mate Mikkola took a resounding victory on that year’s RAC, with Waldegård trailing in ninth. In the final event of the season, the Ivory Coast Rally, Waldegård brought his Mercedes home in second behind Mikkola’s sister car, and ‘Walle’ won the championship by one point. Björn continued to rally for many years, becoming the oldest driver to win a round of the WRC when he took victory on the 1990 Safari at the age of 46. On one occasion, he was mildly embarrassed to have crashed while avoiding a dog, having always told his own children they should “never turn the wheel to save an animal”. But he consoled himself with the thought that “maybe that dog was the friend of a child in Africa”. Opposite: victory in Greece – and the smile on Björn’s face says it all as co-driver Hans Thorszelius quenches his thirst. Left: sideways at the Swedish Rally, keeping his title hopes on track by clinching second place behind Stig Blomqvist’s Saab 84 40 YEARS OF THE WORLD RALLY DRIVERS’ CHAMPIONSHIP FESTIVAL OF SPEED 2019 85 Armed with a four-wheel-drive Audi Quattro – when his rivals were still making do with rear-wheel drive – it was a question of ‘when’ and not ‘if’ Hannu Mikkola would win the Hannu WRC drivers’ crown in the early 1980s. Not that it was just down to the car, though. As Mikkola recalls, rallies in that era were exceptionally tough, no matter what you were driving: “On the RAC Rally at that time, the Mikkola real action happened in the night, and they were very long nights. The rallies were driven blind then – not like now, where they practice. You had to really keep yourself committed at 4am through Kielder Forest with the rain falling and the ground hard with ice.” Such commitment had seen Hannu finish 1983 twice runner-up and twice third over the first four years of the title. At the start of 1983, the Finn was determined that this time he would not be left politely applauding the victor at the end of the year. The crunch came in Round 9 of 12 that year, on his home rally in Finland. Hannu had already taken victory in Sweden, Portugal and Argentina, but his rival Walter Röhrl had also won three times for Lancia. In Finland, Hannu saw his championship challenge falter just minutes into the 1000 Lakes Rally. “On the first stage my gearbox went and I was five minutes down – I knew if I wanted to be World Champion I had to win,” Hannu recalls. As he’d already mastered the ultra-fast gravel roads of the ‘Finnish Grand Prix’, winning the event six times, where better to make his stand? “I don’t think I have ever tried so hard or driven so fast. In the end I won the rally by 15 seconds or something!” Hannu proved himself a worthy champion, regardless of what he drove. Opposite: Hannu Mikkola flings his Audi Quattro A2 over the yumps of the 1983 1000 Lakes Rally in his native Finland. Hannu screwed his courage to the sticking point, and nailed the accelerator to the floor, to take the win and secure the drivers’ title 86 FESTIVAL OF SPEED 2019 87 Every time a driver straps themselves into a competition car, they accept a certain amount of risk. But at the height of the Group B era in 1986, danger reached unacceptable levels. Juha Kankkunen With the deaths of three spectators in Portugal, followed by the demise of Lancia superstars Henri Toivonen and Sergio Cresto in Corsica, what was meant to be the sport’s greatest year degenerated into a season from Hell. Twenty-seven-year-old Juha Kankkunen found himself in the epicentre of a storm. The 1986, 1987, 1991, 1993 Finn had been drafted into the Peugeot team from Toyota, where he had cut his WRC teeth and won the 1985 Safari and Ivory Coast rallies in a Celica Twincam Turbo. Now he would pilot the 500bhp, mid-engined 205 T16 E2. With his Wyatt Earp moustache, ice-blue eyes and gun-slinger stare, it never looked like he would flinch at the challenge. Nor did he, winning 1986’s second round in Sweden. Victories in Greece and New Zealand, plus a second-place in Finland, put Kankkunen on course for the title. Then in Sanremo the stewards excluded Peugeot from the event over alleged technical infringements, swinging the balance in favour of Lancia’s Markku Alén. That decision was overturned – but not until several days after the end of the year’s final event. Kankkunen was confirmed as champion, and if the champagne tasted a little flat by then, not to worry; Juha took three more titles during his 20-year career – two with Lancia and one with Toyota. To date, he is the only driver to have won with three different manufacturers. Opposite: Kankkunen’s Peugeot 205 T16 E2 tears through snow at the 1986 Monte Carlo Rally, where he finished fifth. Below: celebrating victory in Sweden in 1986 alongside co-driver Juha Piironen 88 40 YEARS OF THE WORLD RALLY DRIVERS’ CHAMPIONSHIP FESTIVAL OF SPEED 2019 89 Miki Biasion Born in Bassano del Grappa in northern Italy, 1988, 1989 Massimo ‘Miki’ Biasion came to international prominence in the Group B era, when he won the 1983 European Rally Championship in a Lancia Rally 037 run by the Italian Jolly Club privateer team. He later stepped up and drove for the Lancia works team in a Group B Delta S4. However, his greatest success came in the later Group A era, which became the top tier after Group B cars were banned at the end of 1986. Biasion took back-to-back world titles at the wheel of a Delta HF Integrale. It’s true to say the Delta was the class of the field from the moment it first appeared in 1987, securing Lancia the manufacturers’ title six years in a row. But Biasion still had to beat his formidable team-mates to the title, and in 1988 and 1989 these included Bruno Saby, Mikael Ericsson and Markku ‘Maximum Attack’ Alén. Biasion’s meticulous eye for detail was matched to a calm manner, and unlike some of his countrymen, his talents were not confined to asphalt, as victories on the Safari, Acropolis and Olympus rallies proved. He may have achieved even more success on loose surfaces had he been given the chance to compete on them more frequently; however, such was Lancia’s pool of driving talent at the time, Biasion was not even entered on the Swedish, 1000 Lakes or RAC rallies in 1988, making his complete domination of the points table at the end of the season even more remarkable. Today, Biasion has found a new lease of life driving on historic events – usually in one of his beloved Lancias – and he’s here at Goodwood this weekend. Opposite: Miki Biasion and his co-driver Tiziano Siviero start their 1989 season – and the defence of their 1988 title – exactly as they mean to go on with victory on the Monte Carlo Rally. Four more wins secured them the title by a convincing 41 points 90 40 YEARS OF THE WORLD RALLY DRIVERS’ CHAMPIONSHIP FESTIVAL OF SPEED 2019 91 In 1995, Colin McRae proved himself the best in the world when he drove his Subaru Impreza over the finish line of that year’s RAC Rally. At the age of 27 years and 109 days, he was – and remains – the youngest ever winner of the World Rally Drivers’ Championship. It wasn’t an easy win: by the mid-point of that season Colin was languishing in sixth place in the standings with 20 points, while team-mate Carlos Sainz led with 50.

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