page_title: Colin McRae
section_title: 1993–1998: Subaru
hierarchical_section_title: Colin McRae / Career / World Rally Championship / 1993–1998: Subaru
caption_attribution_description: 2018 FIA World Rallycross Championship // Round 4, Silverstone, Great Britain // Credit: EKS Audi Sport
context_page_description: Colin Steele McRae, MBE was a British rally driver from Lanark, Scotland. The son of five-time British Rally Champion Jimmy McRae and brother of rally driver Alister McRae, Colin McRae was the 1991 and 1992 British Rally Champion, and in 1995 became the first Scottish person and the youngest to win the World Rally Championship Drivers' title, a record he still holds. With 25 victories in the WRC, McRae previously held the record for the most wins in the series.
  McRae's outstanding performance with the Subaru World Rally Team enabled the team to win the World Rally Championship Constructors' title three times in succession in 1995, 1996 and 1997. After a four-year spell with the Ford Motor Co. team, which saw McRae win nine events, he moved to Citroën World Rally Team in 2003 where, despite not winning an event, he helped them win the first of their three consecutive manufacturers' titles. He was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire for services to motorsport in 1996.
  McRae died in 2007 in a helicopter crash near his home. The accident also killed his son and two family friends.
context_section_description: On his promotion for 1993, McRae initially drove the Prodrive-built Group A Subaru Legacy alongside Finns Ari Vatanen, Hannu Mikkola and Markku Alén. McRae then won his first WRC rally in the car at that year's Rally New Zealand. It was also the first rally win for the newly formed Subaru World Rally Team, shortly before the Legacy was due to be pensioned off in favour of the new Subaru Impreza 555. Such were the rising fortunes of his young Subaru factory team as they competed against the frontrunning Toyota-powered Team TTE, who were excluded from the championship after the 1995 Rally Catalunya due to the use of an illegal air restrictor. It took only until 1995 for McRae to win the drivers title, which he secured with a victory in a straight contest with his double champion teammate, Carlos Sainz, on the season-ending Rally of Great Britain. Although still a winner with the outfit in individual rallies in succeeding years, including, increasingly, more specialised events such as the Acropolis Rally, Safari Rally and the Tour de Corse, McRae could not better second place in the standings in either 1996 or 1997, on both occasions behind Finland and Mitsubishi Ralliart's Tommi Mäkinen. He helped Subaru complete their run of three consecutive manufacturers' titles during this time. In what would turn out to be his final season with the team, in 1998 he won three more rallies and placed third in the standings, as well as winning the Race of Champions in Gran Canaria, the Canary Islands.
caption: One of the Subaru Impreza rally cars that McRae drove during the 1996 World Rally Championship season.
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