It may surprise some of you to know that I used to write for ‘The Sunday Times’ – occasionally (very occasionally - and not often enough ‘cos they were good payers!) and whilst working on my current book I came across this article which was published in the newspaper way back in March 1999. Back then ‘The Times’ was not renowned for its rallying coverage but even they had had heard of the high speed prodigy from Lanark. Anyway, having become aware of the rising star’s proposed latest antics, they asked if I could write a piece, and bearing in mind it wasn’t ‘Motoring News’ this is what I wrote and which was subsequently published :
The reason for press speculation is McRae himself. Electrifying in a rally car, the enigmatic Scot conjures up an excitement born out of the unexpected. If it has an engine and four wheels, McRae is the man. Whereas other drivers may approach a new car tentatively and settle in gradually, McRae can wring its neck within ten seconds of turning on the ignition.
In many ways, McRae invites comparisons with the late Henri Toivonen. Worshipped by fans, defended by friends, but awkward with the press and possessed of a mischievous streak, the similarities do not end there.
Like McRae, Toivonen had a famous motor sporting Dad, Pauli, who undoubtedly opened doors for him in his early days, but like McRae, Toivonen earned his seat wherever and whatever he drove. Toivonen shot to fame and endeared himself to British rally fans when he won the RAC Rally in 1980 at the wheel of a Talbot Sunbeam Lotus. Coming just five years after his rallying debut in a 1300cc Simca, his RAC win changed his status overnight and there were times when it showed that he was uncomfortable with the fame and the attention.
The early 1980s were peppered with rally car shrapnel as Toivonen honed his prodigious talent. From Talbot he went to Opel and then to Lancia who kept faith with the young Finn until his tragic accident in 1986. Unusually, Toivonen combined a burgeoning motor racing career in Formula 3 cars with occasional outings in a sports/GT car.
One of the few drivers to cross disciplines successfully, Toivonen could have been successful in either. A born natural, he stunned onlookers when he lapped the Estoril F1 track just two seconds shy of the track record – in a rally car!
Tragically, this promising career was curtailed prematurely. On the Tour de Corse World Championship Rally, Toivonen and co-driver Sergio Cresta, were killed when their Lancia Delta S4 left the road, crashed and burst into flames.
McRae too has that raw natural ability. Like team boss Cesare Fiorio of Lancia, David Richards of Prodrive kept faith with the young McRae during his ‘learning curve’, and like Lancia, the Subaru team appeared to require more panel beaters than mechanics!
McRae has matured, but nothing has dimmed his searing pace in anything on wheels, two or four. Witness his performance earlier this week in the brand new Ford Focus which weighs 200 kilos more than the race-winning opposition. He utterly dominated the Rally of Portugal leading from first to last of the 21 Special Stages. His speed stunned his rivals. Now they are wondering what will happen when the overweight Focus reaches its true fighting trim.
The mechanics have forgiven him for remarks taken out of context during a press interview following Ford’s disqualification from the Monte Carlo Rally, but the incident served only to make McRae more wary of the press. Now that he has joined the ranks of millionaire superstars he has become fair game to those people who enjoy putting heroes on pedestals, only to knock the feet from under them.
Basically a shy person, McRae’s demeanour is often mistaken for arrogance. To those who don’t know him, he is selfish and uncommunicative, but to those who do know him, he is still the same tearaway who started driving autotest cars at the age of 16 accompanied by his ‘minders’ from Coltness Car Club.
McRae occasionally attends car club meetings in Blackwood and is stoutly defended by club members, known throughout Scottish motor sport as ‘ the Bears’. A wrong word in front of any one of them invites the same response as a slap in the face from a gauntlet. This protectionism is justified. McRae personally underwrites the club’s counter in the Scottish Rally Championship, the Lanark based McRae Stages Rally.
Last year McRae turned up to run Course Car duty, not because he had to, or felt obliged to, but because he wanted to. That’s not the action of a selfish or petulant superstar, that is the mark of an enthusiast and one who remembers and keeps his friends.
His run in the F1 car must also be taken seriously. It will cost the Stewart team a six figure sum to modify the car and run the test. It’s not simply a matter of sliding the seat back and adjusting the steering wheel. McRae is fully five inches taller than Reubens Barrichello and Johnny Herbert, and his shoes are three sizes bigger. In a car which fits like a wet suit with less room than a bobsleigh, installing the gangly McRae will be no easy task.
Neither will it be McRae’s first taste of single seater racing cars. He drove a Formula Renault car in early ’96 before driving the Jordan F1 car later that year. Running back to back with Martin Brundle, McRae was 1.87 seconds shy of Brundle’s best at Silverstone. Eddie Jordan was quite impressed although not surprised.
He was not tempted then to make the switch nor is he likely to be tempted this time. If truth be told, he is far too valuable where he is. Ford have made a huge investment in McRae, £6m over two years which puts him ahead of David Coulthard, Eddie Irvine, Damon Hill and Johnny Herbert. Ford has also made a huge investment in Cockermouth based Malcolm Wilson who runs the Ford World Rally Team. Budgets are not quite at F1 levels, but at £370,000 for a Ford Focus World Rally Car, they are getting there.
That’s perhaps another reason why McRae won’t make the switch, or be allowed to make the switch. Dubbed the ’Schumacher of rallying’ he is too important to the sport. His profile is higher than any other rally driver, not because of any ability to charm the press and TV public, but because of the aura of visceral expectancy he generates every time he steps into a car. F1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone now has responsibility for the TV rights to rallying and he will surely not allow the sport to lose it star.
If he were to make the switch, there are those who think that McRae would become just another Grand Prix driver making up the numbers, but that’s not his style. His fans reckon he would be just the tartan tonic to take on the teutonic automaton.
This isn’t his first taste of motor racing. In 1992, Prodrive entered him in a BMW at the Scottish round of the British Touring Car Championship at Knockhill. In streaming wet conditions, McRae finished 8th in the first heat and 5th in the second, although he was later disqualified for ‘ungentlemanly conduct’ at the Hairpin when Matt Neal was nudged off the track. According to McRae, it was Neal’s fault because he was going too slow, whereas Neal’s opinion was that the rally driver was just a hooligan!
Three years after his first F1 trial, fans relish the prospect of more McRae magic, but any prospects of a career switch are extremely fanciful. He has some unfinished business with three times world rally champion, Tommi Makkinen.
….. as written 26 years ago!!
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