Colin got off to what he saw as a disappointing start in 1996 as he set out to defend his world championship title, eventually he took his first victory of the season on the Acropolis Rally, on what turned out to be the first of five wins in Greece for him.
Finland ended in a big accident and another heated conversation with Dave Richards who had hoped Colin would go for a points finish and try to learn the event, but Colin was a win or lose driver back then and he so wanted to win in Finland.
McRae ended the season with a victories on the Sanremo and Catalunya rallies, here is Colin on that very Catalunya Rally, showing that he had lost none of his daring driving style that won him fans worldwide.
Despite the late season's successes, all was not well in the cockpit of the Impreza, and the pairing of Colin McRae and Derek Ringer came to an end, Colin had finished a respectable second overall in the 1996
WRC but had lost the title to Tommi Makkinen by a massive 31 points.
A fresh start for 1997, Nicky Grist joined McRae to read the notes, Grist was a hugely experienced co driver, he had sat alongside the four time World Champion Juha Kankkunen for the previous three seasons. A new car from Subaru, gone were the Group A regulations and the four door Impreza that British rally fans had grown to love, a new formula called World Rally Car was with us and Subaru had rolled out a new two door Impreza with bulging arches.
McRae & Grist flying high in the Impreza
WRC !!!
Again the season started badly with retirement on the Monte Carlo and fourth on the Swedish (to be fair, the top four on that year's Swedish were split by just 31 seconds, unfortunately Colin was at the back of that very close pack) Next up was the Safari, Colin proved his doubters wrong, they said no way would a car wrecker like McRae ever win the gruelling Safari, but he took a convincing victory.
Another three events on, Makinen had taken a comfortable lead in the championship, Tommi was proving a match for McRae and he was enjoying better reliablility, Colin was getting used to seeing this sight. McRae and Makinen were great rivals on the rally stages but great friends away from the sport, Colin considered Tommi to be the finest driver of his era.
McRae and Grist fought back with a win in Corsica (another specialist event which is rarely won by non French drivers even today)
Finland, another error by McRae :-( Meanwhile, even worse, Makinen took the third of five back to back victories in Finland, I guess this was one of the reasons that Colin held Tommi in such high esteem.
Colin did his now usual end of season superstar performance, winning the last three events of '97 - Italy, Australia & GB, he was again beaten to the title by a frustrating one point margin by Makinen, McRae must have wished he'd collected some points in Finland.
1998 was to see a similar pattern to 1997, Colin winning regularly but feeling that Subaru were not offering him a reliable enough car to take the title, this time he finished third in the title chase, behind Sainz and the again champion Makinen.
Colin never won the Monte Carlo, he didn't like the event, although he came close to winning it on more than one occasion. Here he is in 1998.
Corsica 1998, just look at the crowd reaction, you can be sure that the first two cars on the road had been through this corner like racing cars, Colin never let the spectators down.
By now, another British rally driver was on the scene, Richard Burns, his driving style was immaculate compared to McRae's, this was to be a halcyon period for British rallying, they finished 1-2 on
WRC events on more than one occasion, this would have been considered unthinkable just a few years earlier. I can't believe I am typing this text in 2008 with the knowledge that both drivers are no longer with us :-( But what a great period in the sport that was :-)
