When WRC drivers made cameos in Ireland

Ireland has never produced an outright World Rally champion and has only ever hosted a round of the World Rally Championship twice, but its place in the heart of rallyists the world over is beyond question.

The passion, the culture and of course the roads make an addictive concoction that, this weekend, two-time world champion Kalle Rovanperä becomes the latest global star to experience.

Plenty of WRC champions, winners and recognizable names have sampled what Ireland has to offer over the years – including Sébastien Ogier (which you can read about here) – while some, most notably Craig Breen who took any opportunity he ever could to come back home and drive, have even taken on the specific challenge the Finn will face: the Killarney Historic Rally, featuring the revered Molls Gap test.

There have been appearances from the likes of Elfyn Evans, Esapekka Lappi, Adrien Fourmaux, Ari Vatanen, Michèle Mouton and even Kalle’s own father Harri Rovanperä over the years, but in this list we aren’t focusing on international drivers who competed in Ireland as part of other championship campaigns.

Instead we are concentrating on those who made less expected, one-off appearances – with varying degrees of success. Fittingly for such a rally-mad country, there are some eclectic names in here!

Sébastien Loeb – Donegal 2007

With the WRC heading to Ireland for the first time that November, Sébastien Loeb was entered into the revered Donegal International Rally in June 2007, driving a fully works Citroën C4 WRC (in an entry that also included Andreas Mikkelsen).

The mission was clearly to glean an understanding of the Irish terrain to perfect the C4’s setup for the world championship event, but Loeb found himself engaged in an interesting battle with triple British Rally champion Mark Higgins.

Driving a car not yet dialled in properly for the bumpy Irish lanes, Loeb was over half a minute behind Higgins at the end of the first leg, but three stages into Saturday the then three-time world champion was ahead.

In fact, over the rally’s two final days Loeb and co-driver Daniel Elena won every single stage to take victory by over two minutes. Expected? Perhaps, but impressive nonetheless on Loeb’s first ever rally in Ireland.

Loeb, Dani Sordo & Mikko Hirvonen – Cork 20 2007

But it wouldn’t be his last. Just three months later, and two months prior to the inaugural Rally Ireland, Loeb’s Citroën C4 WRC was back on the entry list of an Irish Tarmac Championship rally – only this time it had company.

Citroën team-mate Dani Sordo (Xsara WRC) and Ford’s Mikko Hirvonen joined the French maestro at 2007’s Cork 20, making that year’s Irish Tarmac finale a truly memorable affair.

The contest however… well, it wasn’t one. Quickest on the opening stage by 12.3s (with the leading local 30.6s adrift), Loeb was in a class of one as he won 13 of the rally’s 14 stages to beat Sordo by north of two minutes.

Higgins, his yardstick from Donegal, was two tenths shy of five minutes adrift in third. Hirvonen won the last stage but could only finish fifth after a puncture on SS2 cost him over four and a half minutes.

Marcus Grönholm – Galway 2007

Not to be outdone by his rivals at the time, Marcus Grönholm also got to sample the Irish roads before heading there in full World Rally Championship mode. In fact, he did it before anyone else by competing on February’s Galway International, the opening round of the Irish Tarmac series.

Just like his title rival Loeb, Grönholm’s goal was simply to learn the unique Irish stages – but got more than he bargained for with an epic battle with reigning Irish Tarmac champion Eugene Donnelly’s Subaru Impreza S12 WRC.

Grönholm initially shot into an early lead, but as the first day wore on Donnelly started to come back at him. The Northern Irishman ended the first day with a lead of 5.4s.

The Finn set his stall out on the final day’s opener by halving Donenlly’s lead, but Donnelly would prove no pushover. Two stages later, his advantage was up to 8.8s, but ride height changes to Grönholm’s Focus swung the battle back towards the two-time world champion as he reduced the deficit to 1.1s in one swipe.

An epic finish was in store, but heartbreakingly Donnelly’s rally was about to go awry. Gearbox trouble led to a mistake on the penultimate stage, and the Subaru was out. Grönholm was able to record a dominant 2m52s victory that belied the ferocity of the fight to achieve it.

Conrad Rautenbach – Galway 2009

It’s not every day the entry to a round of Ireland’s national championship is topped by a driver from Zimbabwe. But Conrad Rautenbach’s decision to contest the 2009 Galway International, two weeks prior to that year’s Rally Ireland, ensured just that.

Perhaps as you’d expect considering Rautenbach’s modest WRC career, he didn’t have quite the same success as the names mentioned earlier.

Driving a Xsara WRC instead of the C4 he’d campaign on the WRC event, Rautenbach peaked with a second fastest time that helped him to a shared fourth overall (with Peader Hurson’s Subaru) at the halfway stage. But a minute penalty for being late to a time control, following a technical problem on the road section, preceded an accident on SS12 that ended his run early.

Junior WRC contender Aaron Burkart was also present in his Suzuki Swift S1600, and would’ve comfortably won the class but elected not to be classified.

Colin McRae – Donegal 2006

With his days as a full-time World Rally Championship driver behind him, Colin McRae instead went about taking on unique and interesting challenges – one of those including a crack at Donegal in a MG Metro 6R4.

Colin’s global status saw him seeded at three, but finishing there was always going to be a tall order up against a hoard of well-driven World Rally Cars.

The end result was eighth, but what really counted was the craic had and the opportunity he gave Irish fans to witness McRae’s famous flat-out style on their shores with their own eyes.

The most famous moment of the weekend was undoubtedly the slide down an escape road at a junction that drew the chuckles of McRae and co-driver Nicky Grist.

Colin McRae – Punchestown 2002

But it wasn’t McRae’s only special appearance in Ireland. Four years earlier, just a week after he’d broken the record for the most WRC wins by a single driver at the Safari Rally, Colin appeared at the Punchestown Rally Masters in his Ford Focus WRC ’02.

Held at Punchestown Racecourse, the event was far from your average rally and more a celebration of motorsport. But there was still a competitive element, with McRae going up against Andrew Nesbitt who, at that stage, had only been beaten once on Irish soil in the 21st century.

McRae, however, proved too strong. Gaps were tight across the event’s six stages, but the 1995 world champion topped every single one of them to win out by 14s – on a weekend where his protégé Kris Meeke got a shot behind the wheel of the WRC Focus.

McRae wasn’t the only WRC star to grace Punchestown either. In the event’s inaugural year in 2001, Richard Burns (Subaru) and Freddy Loix (Mitsubishi) were in town, although they didn’t take part in the competitive element of the event.

Markko Märtin – Cork 20 2006

In a rare rally outing following the tragic loss of his co-driver Michael Park in 2005, Markko Märtin lined up to tackle the final round of the Irish Tarmac series in 2006 – the Cork 20.

Alongside co-driver David Senior in an ex-Petter Solberg Subaru Impreza S9 WRC, Märtin was initially superseded by Suzuki Junior WRC driver Guy Wilks who stormed into a half-minute lead on the first day.

But when the Briton hit a chicane and damaged his Subaru’s oil cooler and radiator, which led to it going on fire, he was out of the running and team-mate Mark Higgins inherited the lead.

Märtin was rusty having not competed since his WRC career prematurely ended, but managed to take second overall with top-three times on half the event’s stages.

Mikko Hirvonen – West Cork 2019

Mikko Hirvonen has never made any secret of the fact Ford’s Escort Mk2 is his favorite ever rally car. So the chance to drive a souped-up version in Ireland’s modified class was one he was not going to pass up at the 2019 West Cork Rally.

Neatly, modified is exactly the same category Hirvonen’s compatriot Rovanperä will compete in this weekend.

Wading into battle against some rapid locals, Hirvonen and co-driver Jarno Ottman traded times with Gary Kiernan’s similar Escort. But when the Irishman was forced out with mechanical trouble on SS13, Hirvonen was clear to take a comfortable class win and 16th overall – the highest classified non Rally2/R5/S2000 car.

He declared afterwards that he’d never had so much fun in a rally car.

Tony Pond – Donegal 1985

As part of Austin Rover’s suite of national events to get the MG Metro 6R4 up to speed before its world championship debut at the end of the year, Tony Pond made the trip to Donegal in 1985 to give the new car its first proper run on Tarmac.

Anybody who could beat Billy Coleman and his Porsche in Ireland at that time was going some, but Pond and co-driver Rob Arthur were a massive 20s faster over the opening Letterleague test. By first service, the Metro was already over a minute ahead of the chasing pack.

But SS7 would prove Pond’s downfall: “The throttle jammed open, and with 400bhp that’s quite a problem,” he said. The result was a blown engine and retirement from the event.

But Pond was quickest on all six stages he completed.

Petter Solberg – Clare Forestry 2024

We find ourselves in the modern day, and in fact just last month, to conclude this list with 2003 world champion Petter Solberg’s one-off outing in the Defender Rally Challenge.

The only gravel rally to feature here (no surprise given Ireland is famous for its Tarmac stages instead), Solberg teamed up with John Tomley to drive in the spec series, and dominated.

Despite a puncture on the first stage, Solberg won every single stage in-class to take victory by over a minute.