Alister McRae (born 20 December 1970 in
LanarkLanark is a small town in the central belt of Scotland. Its population of 8,253 makes it the 100th largest settlement in Scotland. The origin of the name is British meaning "clear space, glade"....
) is a
ScottishScotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
rallyRallying is a form of motor competition that takes place on public or private roads with modified production or specially built road-legal cars. This motorsport is distinguished by running not on a circuit, but instead in a point-to-point format in which participants and their co-drivers drive...
driver, who competed in the
World Rally ChampionshipThe World Rally Championship is a rallying series organised by the FIA, culminating with a champion driver, co-driver and manufacturer. The driver's world championship and manufacturer's world championship are separate championships, but based on the same point system...
. He is the son of the five-time
British Rally ChampionThe MSA British Rally Championship is a yearly rallying series based in the United Kingdom. It consists of six rounds throughout the British Isles. The first championship was run in 1958 and it is licensed by the MSA Motor Sports Association since 1999...
Jimmy McRaeJimmy McRae is a Scottish rally driver. He is the father of World Rally Championship drivers Alister McRae, and the late 1995 World Rally Champion Colin McRae...
and the younger brother of the late 1995
World Rally Champion,
Colin McRaeColin Steele McRae, MBE was a Scottish rally driver born in Lanark.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 Briton and the youngest to win the World...
. Alister is married to Tara and is father to Emmie and Max.
McRae took his first foray into motorsport at the age of twelve, when he took up motorcycle trials and motorcross.
Alister McRae (born 20 December 1970 in
LanarkLanark is a small town in the central belt of Scotland. Its population of 8,253 makes it the 100th largest settlement in Scotland. The origin of the name is British meaning "clear space, glade"....
) is a
ScottishScotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
rallyRallying is a form of motor competition that takes place on public or private roads with modified production or specially built road-legal cars. This motorsport is distinguished by running not on a circuit, but instead in a point-to-point format in which participants and their co-drivers drive...
driver, who competed in the
World Rally ChampionshipThe World Rally Championship is a rallying series organised by the FIA, culminating with a champion driver, co-driver and manufacturer. The driver's world championship and manufacturer's world championship are separate championships, but based on the same point system...
. He is the son of the five-time
British Rally ChampionThe MSA British Rally Championship is a yearly rallying series based in the United Kingdom. It consists of six rounds throughout the British Isles. The first championship was run in 1958 and it is licensed by the MSA Motor Sports Association since 1999...
Jimmy McRaeJimmy McRae is a Scottish rally driver. He is the father of World Rally Championship drivers Alister McRae, and the late 1995 World Rally Champion Colin McRae...
and the younger brother of the late 1995
World Rally Champion,
Colin McRaeColin Steele McRae, MBE was a Scottish rally driver born in Lanark.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 Briton and the youngest to win the World...
. Alister is married to Tara and is father to Emmie and Max.
Career
McRae took his first foray into motorsport at the age of twelve, when he took up motorcycle trials and motorcross. But it was always rallying where he would demonstrate his true colours. Starting out by competing in
Scottish Rally ChampionshipThe Scottish Rally Championship is a rallying series run throughout Scotland over the course of a year, that comprises seven gravel rallies and one tarmac event which take in some breathtaking rally action and some of the best of Scotland's scenery. Points are awarded to the top placed drivers and...
events, success wasn't long in coming. In 1992, he won the prestigious Shell Scholarship and the production category of
Great BritainGreat Britain is an island lying to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the ninth largest island in the world, and the largest European island. With a population of about 59.6 million people, it is the third most populated island on Earth. Great Britain is surrounded by over 1000 smaller...
's round of the
World Rally ChampionshipThe World Rally Championship is a rallying series organised by the FIA, culminating with a champion driver, co-driver and manufacturer. The driver's world championship and manufacturer's world championship are separate championships, but based on the same point system...
.
The following years saw further triumphs, culminating with Alister winning the
British Rally ChampionshipThe MSA British Rally Championship is a yearly rallying series based in the United Kingdom. It consists of six rounds throughout the British Isles. The first championship was run in 1958 and it is licensed by the MSA Motor Sports Association since 1999...
outright in 1995, at the wheel of a works
Nissan SunnyThe Nissan Sunny is a small car from Nissan. It was launched in 1966 as the Datsun 1000 and although production in Japan ended in 2004, it remains in production today for the African and American markets. In the US, the later models were known as the Nissan Sentra; in Mexico, the Sunny is known as...
. More manufacturer drives ensued, with a two-year contract being signed to drive the Formula 2
Volkswagen GolfThe Volkswagen Golf is a hatchback / small family car manufactured by Volkswagen since 1974 and marketed worldwide across six generations, in various body configurations and under various nameplates -- prominently as the Volkswagen Rabbit in the United States and Canada , and as the Volkswagen...
. He famously competed alongside his brother on a one-off basis in the
Subaru World Rally TeamThe Subaru World Rally Team was Subaru's World Rally Championship team. It used a distinctive blue with yellow color scheme that is a throwback to the sponsorship deal with State Express 555, a BAT cigarette brand popular in Asia. 555 logos were found on Subaru cars from 1993 to 2003...
on the Rally of Great Britain of 1998.
His results and reputation led to his services being secured by the newest manufacturer to join the World Rally Championship,
HyundaiHyundai is a group of companies founded by Chung Ju-yung in South Korea. The first Hyundai company was founded in 1947 as a construction company, and eventually became South Korea's largest conglomerate company ....
. In 1999, he competed in the front wheel drive Coupe while simultaneously developing Hyundai's first world rally car, the
Accent WRCThe Hyundai Accent , or Hyundai Verna in South Korea, is a subcompact car produced by Hyundai. In Australia, these models carried over the Hyundai Excel name, that was used by the Accent's predecessor. The Accent was replaced in 2000 by the Hyundai Verna in South Korea, although most international...
, alongside veteran
SwedeSweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe...
Kenneth ErikssonKenneth Eriksson is a now retired World Rally Championship rally driver. He drove for several manufacturer teams, including the Subaru World Rally Team, Mitsubishi, Hyundai and Skoda...
. Then in 2000, he developed the car further during its first year of actual competition, scoring the manufacturer's first ever WRC points. In 2001, the fruits of two years' hard work began to show, with a series of points-scoring finishes (both drivers particularly impressing in the laborious conditions of that year's wet Rally Portugal) and a narrow miss of the podium on his home event, the Rally of Great Britain.
Following his performances with Hyundai, McRae was selected to join
MitsubishiThe , Mitsubishi Group of Companies, or Mitsubishi Companies is a Japanese conglomerate consisting of a range of autonomous businesses which share the Mitsubishi brand, trademark and legacy...
, stalwart of the WRC, in 2002. This transpired to be a difficult year, as the Japanese manufacturer found itself in turmoil, with an uncompetitive new car and a massive management re-structure. Things got even worse for the team when McRae was forced to pull out for the rest of the season due to injuries following a mountain bike crash shortly after that year's Rally San Remo therefore further hindering the team's championship effort. It subsequently pulled out of rallying at the beginning of the 2003 season, to build a new rally car from scratch, leaving McRae to piece together a sporadic privateer campaign at World Championship level, which was rewarded with a points-scoring showing in a Lancer Evolution in
New ZealandNew Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses , and numerous smaller islands, most notably Stewart Island/Rakiura and the Chatham Islands. The indigenous Māori named New Zealand Aotearoa, commonly translated as The Land of the Long White Cloud...
.
Undaunted by Mitsubishi's subsequent implicit resolve not to recall either himself or 2002 team-mate
François DelecourFrançois Delecour is a rally driver.In the employ of Ford Motor Company as a driver of the factory-fettled Ford Escort RS Cosworth, he finished as runner-up in drivers' standings in the 1993 World Rally Championship season. He was still driving for Ford by January 1994, when he won the...
as the source of one of the few remaining factory opportunities sought to regroup for the 2004 season, Alister entered the 2004
Production World Rally ChampionshipThe FIA Production World Rally Championship, or PWRC, is a companion rally series to the World Rally Championship, and is driven on the same stages. PWRC is limited to production-based cars homologated under the Group N or Super 2000 rules...
instead. He was on course to take the title on the last event before a mechanical failure struck, handing the title to Niall McShea.
2006 saw Alister successfully competing in the Chinese Rally Championship with the Wanyu Rally Team in a Mitsubishi Evo 9, along with a number of other selected international events. McRae also added to his tally of World championship appearances in the new
Toyota CorollaThe Corolla is a line of subcompact/compact cars manufactured by the Japanese automaker Toyota, which has become very popular throughout the world since the nameplate was first introduced in 1966. In 1997, the Corolla became the best selling nameplate in the world, with over 35 million sold as of...
S2000Super 2000, also known as S2000, is an FIA specification and classification for production based race cars. The specification is split to cover both rally and touring car racing. Super 2000 rally cars are also permitted to compete in Production World Rally Championship events alongside Group N cars...
at the 2006 Wales Rally GB, racking up four
Group NIn relation to motorsport governed by the FIA, Group N refers to a set of regulations providing 'standard' production vehicles for competition, often referred to as the "Showroom Class"....
stageSpecial stages are the competitive sections of a stage rally event where the goal is to cover a stretch of closed road in the shortest time. On a special stage cars are set off individually at set intervals to reduce the chances of being impeded by other competitors. Each special stage is a...
wins.
Alister filled in for his brother Colin at the
2007 Race of ChampionsThe 2007 Race of Champions took place on December 16 at the Wembley Stadium. Michael Schumacher and Sebastian Vettel of the German team beat Finland to the Nation's Cup, however Mattias Ekström of Sweden and the Scandinavian team won the Driver's Cup after beating Schumacher in the three-heat...
held at Wembley following Colin's death just two months earlier.
He participated in
2009 Dakar RallyThe 2009 Dakar Rally was the 30th running of the Dakar rally an automobile, motorcycle, and all-terrain vehicle race, latest 8 of which were dominated by Mitsubishi Team. The race officially began at 5:00 a.m. ARST on January 3, 2009, and took place across Argentina and Chile...
.
He will be driving a Proton Satria Neo
Super 2000Super 2000, also known as S2000, is an FIA specification and classification for production based race cars. The specification is split to cover both rally and touring car racing. Super 2000 rally cars are also permitted to compete in Production World Rally Championship events alongside Group N cars...
at the Indonesian leg of the APRC 2009.
External links