The inaugural event was the 1932 Royal Automobile Club Rally, regarded as the first major rally of the modern era in Great Britain. Of 367 crews entered, 341 competitors in unmodified cars started from nine towns — London, Bath, Norwich, Leamington, Buxton, Harrogate, Liverpool, Newcastle upon Tyne and Edinburgh — each following a route of approximately 1,000 miles finishing at Torquay. The time schedules were deliberately easy; competitive tests were performed at the finish. Colonel A. H. Loughborough in a Lanchester 15/18 recorded the fewest penalty points, completing a 100-yard slow-driving test at an average speed of 0.66 mph. No official winner was declared. The following year Miss Kitty Brunell, driving an AC four-seater sports, was the driver with the fewest penalties at the Hastings finish. The rally ran annually until 1939, when the Second World War forced its suspension.
The first post-war event was the RAC International Rally of Great Britain 1951, featuring an 1,800-mile itinerary with tests of speed, hill-climbing and regularity. Cars convened at Silverstone racing circuit for a high-speed test before a common itinerary through Scotland, Wales and England, finishing in Bournemouth. The 1953 event was included as the third round of the inaugural European Touring Championship and featured nine tests, among them acceleration and braking at Silverstone, a night climb of Prescott Hill, a speed test at Goodwood, and a garaging test at Llandrindod Wells. Ian Appleyard, driving a Jaguar XK120, was declared the first official winner. By 1958 no foreign driver entered the rally at all, yet the award for best foreign driver was still presented, to Paddy Hopkirk of Northern Ireland.
In 1960, organising secretary Jack Kemsley negotiated with the Forestry Commission to use a closed two-mile gravel road named Monument Hill in Argyll, Scotland, as a speed test. Erik Carlsson of Sweden won the rally that year and was the only driver not to accrue any penalty points. His co-driver Stuart Turner remarked in the 1987 book RAC Rally by Maurice Hamilton: "there is no doubt that was the point at which the RAC Rally shifted from a traditional 'Find Your Way' on the public roads rally to the type of event we know today." In 1961, rough gravel forestry roads across the country were opened up, with sealed surfaces such as Oulton Park making only a small fraction of around 200 miles of special stages. Special timing clocks and seeding of entries were also introduced. By 1965, the rally featured over 400 miles across 57 special stages on War Department roads, racing circuits, and forests. In 1966, The Sun newspaper became a sponsor to help cover the rising costs of Forestry Commission road use. From 1965, total time on special stages classified the results. The 1967 event was cancelled on the eve due to an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease; competitors staged a mock rally at the Bagshot proving ground as a consolation.
Until 1970 there had been no title sponsorship, but that year rally plates carried advertising for the event's newspaper sponsor. In 1971 the full title changed to the Daily Mirror RAC International Rally of Great Britain. Finance company Lombard North Central, then known as Lombank, took over title rights in 1974, and the event became the Lombard RAC Rally, a name synonymous with the event for almost two decades. In 1971, ticketed spectator stages were introduced; by 1975 they were an important source of revenue, typically held at stately homes such as Chatsworth House and Sutton Park. Drivers including Roger Clark criticised these short tests as "Mickey Mouse stages." The RAC's Competitions Committee was replaced by a Motor Sports Council in 1975, absorbed by the RAC Motor Sports Association in 1979.
The 1985 event was the longest RAC Rally to date: 3,465 kilometres (2,153 miles), with 79 hours of driving and 33 hours of rest across six days. The 1986 RAC Rally was the last European event for Group B vehicles. Timo Salonen, Juha Kankkunen and Mikael Sundström in Peugeot 205 T16 Evo. 2s took three of the top four places, with only Markku Alén in a Lancia Delta S4 preventing a complete Peugeot podium. There were 83 finishers from 150 starters in 1986, compared to 54 finishers from 151 starters in the worst attrition year of 1981, and only 6 retirements from 237 starters in the 1938 event.
During the 1990s, event length was reduced in line with other international rallies. 1989 was the last event over five days; 1995 the last over four days. From 1990, crews were permitted to use pacenotes for the first time. In 1991, the world championship was decided in the British forests: Juha Kankkunen in a Lancia edged out Carlos Sainz after the Spaniard suffered engine issues and went off in Kielder Forest. In 1992, Sainz and Kankkunen returned alongside Didier Auriol for the title. Auriol's challenge ended with engine failure and Kankkunen's hopes were dashed by a steering damage on the final day in southern Scotland; Sainz won the rally and his second world title. In 1995 it was estimated that around 2 million fans lined the forests to witness Colin McRae win his second consecutive RAC Rally, claiming his only world title at Chester Racecourse ahead of teammate Carlos Sainz. McRae won again in 1997 but was beaten to the title by Finn Tommi Mäkinen by a single point.
One of the most dramatic title showdowns came in 1998: championship leader Mäkinen crashed out on one of the first day's spectator stages after his Mitsubishi hit a patch of oil and shed a wheel, apparently handing the title to Toyota's Carlos Sainz. However, Sainz's engine failed just 300 metres from the finish line of the final stage, returning the championship to Mäkinen. Luis Moya famously threw his helmet through the car's rear window in frustration.
In 2003, a four-way title fight was reduced when Richard Burns withdrew for medical reasons and Sainz crashed out. Norwegian Petter Solberg won the rally ahead of Sébastien Loeb and claimed his only world rally title by a single point.
In 1998, "RAC" disappeared from the rally's name when the club restructured to sell its commercial motoring services. Network Q became title sponsor. In 2000, new commercial rights holder International Sportsworld Communicators under David Richards condensed the rally into a compact area, introduced a single central service park, and double-ran stages in a cloverleaf format. The 2000 edition, for the first time in the event's history, did not leave South or Mid-Wales. The Welsh Assembly became title sponsor in 2003, cementing the rally's Welsh identity. The 2005 rally included the first indoor super-special stage at the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff, but was overshadowed by tragedy: on stage fifteen, Peugeot driver Markko Märtin crashed, and co-driver Michael Park sustained fatal injuries — the first death in the WRC in over a decade. Sébastien Loeb voluntarily incurred a two-minute time penalty to avoid winning under such circumstances, leaving Petter Solberg as the declared victor. A memorial for Park was erected in Estonia; the damaged tree at the Margam Park stage bears a plaque in his memory.
After being centred in South Wales since 2000, the 2011 rally started in Llandudno in North Wales. From 2013, the service park was located in Deeside, near Chester. In 2016 the MSA and Natural Resources Wales agreed to continue using Welsh forest stages for three further years. The last planned Wales Rally GB in 2020 was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The Welsh Government withdrew sponsorship and attempts to hold a Rally UK or Rally Northern Ireland came to nothing. Rally GB was replaced on the 2021 WRC calendar by the Belgian Ypres Rally and did not appear on the 2022–2026 calendars. After a six-year absence, the event was resurrected as Rally Scotland for the 2027 season.
British forest stages feature relatively high average speeds, though generally not as fast as Scandinavia. Roads are typically smooth with a hard base and minimal loose surface material; Kielder stages are rougher and more abrasive. Stages in North Wales and the Lake District are narrow; those in South Wales and Kielder are wider. Typically run in November, rainfall is almost guaranteed, and wet muddy conditions have become the rally's defining characteristic. Ice and snow are not uncommon, particularly in the northernmost sections; the 1971, 1988 and 1993 editions featured heavy snow. The Forestry Commission outlaws studded tyres in British forests. Double world champion Walter Röhrl was the most high-profile driver to express dislike for the event's conditions.
Nordic drivers dominated the early decades, winning the first six runnings from 1953 when an outright winner was first declared. Erik Carlsson won a hat-trick of victories in 1960–1962 in a Saab 96. Hannu Mikkola won four times (1978–79, 1981–82) and Petter Solberg four times (2002–2005). The record for most victories stands at five, held by Sébastien Ogier across 2013–2016 and 2018, surpassing Mikkola and Solberg. The last Nordic winner of Rally GB was Jari-Matti Latvala in 2012. In 2001, Colin McRae crashed out of an early lead, gifting the championship to English rival Richard Burns.
Two events have been established to celebrate the rally's classic stages. The RAC Revival Rally uses modern but less powerful cars; the Roger Albert Clark Rally is a historic event restricted to pre-1972 machinery, named after the first home winner of the race as a World Championship event.
This article is based solely on the supplied corpus. No external sources were consulted; claims that could not be substantiated against the corpus were omitted under the drop-the-claim rule.
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