The inaugural 1932 Royal Automobile Club (RAC) Rally was the first major rally of the modern era in Great Britain. Of the 367 crews entered, 341 competitors in unmodified cars started from nine different towns including London, Bath, Edinburgh and Liverpool, all finishing at Torquay. The official programme described routes of approximately 1,000 miles (1,600 km) each, with competitors completing tests at the finish involving slow running, acceleration and braking. No official winner was declared, though Colonel A. H. Loughborough in a Lanchester 15/18 recorded the fewest penalty points.
The rallies ran annually until 1939, finishing at various towns including Brighton and Blackpool, before the Second World War forced suspension.
The first post-war event was the 1951 RAC International Rally of Great Britain, with an 1800-mile itinerary including tests of speed, hill-climbing and regularity, with cars convened at Silverstone for a high-speed test. Cars were required to be standard production models sold in quantities greater than 50. The 1953 event was included as the third round of the inaugural European Touring Championship; it was the first time an official winner was declared — Ian Appleyard, driving a Jaguar XK120.
In 1960, organising secretary Jack Kemsley negotiated with the Forestry Commission to use a closed two-mile (3 km) gravel road named Monument Hill in Argyll, Scotland as a speed test. Erik Carlsson of Sweden won the rally; his co-driver Stuart Turner later reflected: "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 to drivers, with sealed surfaces making only a small fraction of approximately 200 miles of special stages. The introduction of special timing clocks and seeding of entries secured the rally's international appeal.
By 1965 there were over 400 miles across 57 special stages, held on War Department roads, racing circuits, and other private venues, predominantly in forests.
There was no title sponsorship until 1970, when the rally plates on all cars carried advertising for the Daily Mirror. In 1971 the event's full title became 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 Lombard RAC Rally name became synonymous with the event for almost two decades. Following Lombard's withdrawal after nineteen years, the event became the Network Q RAC Rally, and later the Network Q Rally of Great Britain.
Ticketed spectator stages were introduced in 1971 and by 1975 had become an important source of revenue, held at stately homes such as Chatsworth House and Sutton Park. Competing driver and columnist Chris Lord described them as "Mickey Mouse stages" because of the lack of challenge they offered.
The 1985 event was the longest RAC Rally to date at 3,465 kilometres (2,153 mi), with 79 hours of driving and 33 hours of rest over six days. The 1986 RAC Rally was the last European event for Group B vehicles, banned following a series of accidents including the death of Henri Toivonen earlier that year. The Peugeot 205 T16 Evo. 2s of Timo Salonen, Juha Kankkunen, and Mikael Sundström took three of the top four places, with only Markku Alén's second place in the Lancia Delta S4 preventing a Peugeot monopoly of the podium. There were 83 finishers from 150 starters in 1986, compared with only 54 from 151 starters in the worst attrition year of 1981.
The rally has staged numerous WRC title-deciding finales.
In 1991, Juha Kankkunen driving for Lancia edged out Toyota's Carlos Sainz after Sainz suffered engine issues and went off in Kielder Forest. In 1992, Sainz and Kankkunen were joined by Didier Auriol in a three-way fight; Auriol's challenge ended with engine failure and Kankkunen went off and damaged his steering on the final day, allowing Sainz to win the rally and claim his second world title. In 1995, approximately 2 million fans lined the forests as Colin McRae won his first and only world title, beating teammate Carlos Sainz at Chester Racecourse. Despite winning again in 1997, McRae was pipped to the title by Finn Tommi Mäkinen by just one point.
In 1998, championship leader Tommi Mäkinen crashed out on a spectator stage after his Mitsubishi hit a patch of oil, seemingly handing the title to Carlos Sainz. However, Sainz's engine failed 300 metres from the finish line of the final stage, and Mäkinen claimed the championship; co-driver Luis Moya famously threw his helmet through the car's rear window in frustration.
McRae crashed out of an early lead in 2001, gifting the championship to English rival Richard Burns.
In 2003, a four-way title fight narrowed when Burns was forced to withdraw for medical reasons — a condition that would claim his life two years later — and Sainz crashed out. Petter Solberg won the rally ahead of Sébastien Loeb, beating Loeb to his only world rally title by one point.
In 2005, Peugeot driver Markko Märtin crashed heavily into a tree on stage fifteen; his co-driver Michael Park sustained fatal injuries. It was the first death in the WRC in over a decade. The final two stages were cancelled. Sébastien Loeb, who would have won the event and the championship, voluntarily incurred a two-minute time penalty, leaving Petter Solberg as the declared victor.
Home British drivers won the first six runnings from 1953 when an outright winner was first declared. In 1960, Erik Carlsson of Sweden drove his Saab 96 to the first of a hat-trick of victories (1960–1962). Of the nine drivers to have won three or more times, five have been Swedish, Finnish, or Norwegian. The record of five victories is held by Sébastien Ogier (2013–2016, 2018), surpassing Hannu Mikkola (1978–79, 1981–82) and Petter Solberg (2002–2005). The last Nordic driver to win Rally GB was Jari-Matti Latvala in 2012.
Walter Röhrl, a double world champion, is cited in the corpus as among the most high-profile competitors to state his dislike for the event's conditions.
British forest stages feature relatively high average speeds, though generally not as fast as Scandinavian stages. Crests are not as sharp and there are few natural jumps. The roads are commonly smooth with a hard base and minimal loose surface material. Kielder stages are an exception, being rougher, more abrasive, and cambered towards the edges. Road width varies: North Wales and Lake District stages are typically narrow, while South Wales and Kielder stages are much wider.
Typically held in November, rainfall is almost guaranteed and wet, muddy conditions have been the defining characteristic throughout the rally's history. Ice and snow have affected editions including 1971, 1988, 1993, and 2008, with studded tyres prohibited by the Forestry Commission in British forests to prevent road damage.
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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