The greatest driver of my generation - an Autosport International blog

 As a blogger for the for the Autosport International Show, I was asked to write about the greatest driver of my generation, and after a lot of thought, I came up with one of my heroes, Colin McRae. 

When I was asked to write a blog post about the driver of my generation I had a long think. “Ah”, I thought, “I’ll write about Lewis Hamilton or Vettel” but then I realised that a lot of other people will probably do the same, so I went back to the drawing board and had another think, this time deciding to go a bit leftfield, and that’s how I ended up at my choice, Colin McRae. 

Sadly Colin isn’t with us any more but that doesn’t stop him from being the driver of my generation. Sure he didn’t win a silly amount of titles on the trot like Sebastian Loeb, but Colin had a charm like few other racing drivers; the mantra “if in doubt, flat out” is a) a clichéd phrase and also b) oh so true. McRae (with a bit of help from Playstation and Subaru) got me into rallying and its goodness as a small child and made me love motorsport that little bit more. I’ve spent hours on Youtube watching back videos of his driving purely because I don’t know what’s going to happen next: one moment he’s thumping the field and the next he’s upside down in a field. As I say, if in doubt, flat out. Put it this way: there’s now an award during the Sweedish round of the World Rally Championship for the person who has the longest jump over a crest.

If I’m making him out to be a crash-happy daredevil, I’m not – Taki Inoue he ain’t – as he was only of the most talented drivers ever, and I don’t just mean in terms of rallying. He finished third in class at Le Mans at the first (and sadly only) attempt, in a Ferrari 550 that led Alan McNish to praise him, and you can’t get much higher than that in terms of sportscars drivers, and his ability to take every corner like it was his last is second-to-none. There are plenty of photographs out there of sideways Imprezzas, and I imagine antics must have inspired Ken Block and the like to do silly things in cars. 

Put all of that together and you’ll see why he was – and still is – a hero of mine. I grew up adoring what he did and then trying to replicate it on my Playstation on games that bared his name. I can’t be the only one to have done this; he inspired a generation to like rallying again, to go through water as quickly as possible, and to jump as far as you can in the middle of the Sweedish forest in a way that Ken Block can’t – and won’t – achieve. I somehow can’t see people pointing out Ford Fiestas in 15 years’ time, but whenever I see a blue Imprezza I smile, and give the driver a nod. 

 Like so many legends of motorsport, the record books don’t say that he’s the greatest driver of a generation, but my heart says that he’s the greatest driver of my generation. Thank you Colin, and just for you, next time I play a game that has your name on it I’ll pretend that everything is easy flat.