Colin McRae Crash
The Rhonda Rally Stage is where Colin McRae famously crashed out of Wales Rally GB and ended his hopes of a second World Rally Championship
In 2001, McRae had been with Ford for 2 years and amid reliability problems and accidents had been struggling to find the success he had rightly achived with Subaru. 2001 was meant to be a new start, but the reliability problems continued for the first four rounds and McRae was trailing the championship by 24 points. McRae then won the next 3 rallies in a row and by the end of the season went into the final round of leading on 43 points, with Makinen on 42 and Burns on 41. All he ad to do was finish ahead of the pair on his home event and he had won his second WRC.
Makinen crashed out on the first proper stage of the morning, leaving only Burns to worry about. Heading into the 3rd stage of the rally the Rhonda rally stage, McRae was leading by 0.1 second, but feeling rattled that there wasn’t more of a buffer. McRae started to take risks in a bid to move ahead of Burns, but in doing so cut deeper into a corner that he had expected and hit a hole. The result was a huge crash, the pivoting and rolling 4 times in the air. McRae later described it as the biggest disappointment of his career.
