Courage.
Defined as the mental or moral strength to face danger, fear, difficulty, or pain instead of withdrawing from it.
Easy to say, hard to do.
No rally driver is ever supposed to leave a rally without their co-driver. Everyone who pulls the helmet on knows the risks, but you never think it’s going to be you. Especially today, with safety advancing as impressively as it has.
The last time James Williams competed on a stage rally, he faced this brutal reality. An accident at the Jim Clark Rally last May claimed the life of co-driver Dai Roberts and spun his entire world on its axis.
Fortunate to walk away himself, Williams faced a long road to recovery and largely kept his head down, coming to terms with the loss of a good friend and the conflicting emotions of grief, burden and bewilderment that came attached.
Rallying – this pastime that was supposed to bring him joy – had taken so much from Williams. Few would have been surprised if he walked away and was never seen in a service park again.
What the Welshman achieved two weeks ago took courage. Real courage.
While the British Rally Championship title fight between Osian Pryce, Max McRae and Meirion Evans took center stage at the Cambrian Rally last month, Ian Bainbridge was expected to join them on the entry list.
But in a last minute change of plans, Bainbridge could no longer make the event and asked Williams if he’d deputize.
Williams not only started the rally, he finished a remarkable third overall.
“There was definitely a point when I thought, ‘this isn’t for me anymore’, definitely,” Williams opens up to DirtFish.
“I think in my heart I always felt like it wouldn’t be right of me to give up on my dream. And I think that is influenced by many things, like, for example, the relationship I had with Dai, what he went through [with the loss of his brother Gareth ‘Jaffa’ Roberts] and the things that he shared with me privately, you know, about how he overcame things.
“I was always just a spectator in those conversations and just trying to be a good friend. We had a really, really close relationship and so I felt like I was part of his journey. And then when this happened, it’s like, you almost feel connected to it in some way, which is scary, right?
“When you go rallying, you build this confidence. You might have a few bumps and scrapes and stuff, but you still get out of the car generally nine times out of 10, and you’re fine. You might be a bit shaken up, but this time, when I got out of the car, I was hurt. You know, I was really hurt. And I think the biggest shock was the fact that what happened, but also that you’re not invincible in these cars and things can happen to you and you can really get hurt.
Williams has become very aware of the risks rallying can pose
“And so there was definitely that point where I thought, ‘Is it worth it?’ Is it really worth going and competing? But it quickly was distinguished by the fire that I still have to drive.
“I think one of the biggest thoughts I had was like, ‘I don’t want to be a 70-year-old sitting in my chair, around some grandchildren and thinking ‘I could have gone back to it and I didn’t’. I think that would be the one of the biggest regrets.
“So for me I told myself I’m not going to be that guy, so I changed my destiny by having a go. And that’s what I did.”
Mentally deciding to drive is one thing, but Williams had to physically be ready too. He admits that it took until early this year for him to “feel normal again”, but credits the staff at the University of Greater Manchester for helping him through such a dark period.
“They were instrumental in helping me back on my feet and getting me fit again,” he says. “Catherine Mistry and the team there, they’re incredible.
“It was massive for me, not just in terms of getting me fit but also managing my mind: like saying for a general person, this is how long it takes to get back fit, this is what you want to achieve and this is what we’re going to try to work towards, this is the plan. So that was that was really good, and I had some support from the Jaffa Fund as well, which was really poignant and definitely helped me get back on my feet.
“Ultimately once I stopped feeling sorry for myself and asked ‘What’s the next step?’ I felt like I was just in a box full of neutrals. I couldn’t find first gear. And yeah, it was like that for a while. To manage your mind in that period of time where you’ve got nothing, you’ve lost your identity, you’ve basically lost everything you worked towards every single day before that, is hard.”
Williams’ first step back into a rally car came in July 2026, when he got the opportunity to drive the Forest Rally Stage at the Goodwood Festival of Speed.
I had to make sure that everyone around me was happy with me doing something like thatJames Williams
He says that was a “really important” weekend to get through, where he learned that some aspects of rallying would never quite be the same again.
“What you realize when you have something like this happen to you is that you really don’t get in a car and accept risk for yourself. You accept the risk for everyone that loves you and is around you and cares about you,” Williams explains.
“As much as that sounds morbid because rallying is fun and exciting, this is the reality of it. It was something I thought about quite a lot in the time that I spent recovering and stuff. I had to make sure that everyone around me was happy with me doing something like that.
“Goodwood came around as a bit of a spontaneous thing. We had an entry for it because we go every year and I won it two years ago, but the car wasn’t going to be ready so I just reached out to Ian [Bainbridge] and he was quite interested in going, so it came together like that and in the end he couldn’t come for the first two days so he just said ‘Will you drive the car?’
“The first run was nerve-wracking for everyone involved and around but at the same time it was a nice place to do it because it’s quite low risk. It was really good to get through that and just have a lot of support from people around.
“On the Sunday I then had the opportunity to drive the Rally1 car as well. That was just f****g insane, to be honest. It was just a reminder of how, in some ways, motorsport can be so cruel, but then at the same time, the following year, opportunities can just open to you as well, you know? You have the highs and lows, right?
“That was a really nice, fitting way to finish the weekend. I went up the hill with no-one in the car with me. I felt like I went up there with him by my side and we did the run and it was so much fun. The car was unreal, you know, so… yeah, it was just the perfect way to get back in the car and do something and feel the adrenaline again.
Williams still loves rallying, despite what it's taken from him and those close to him
“I feel like this experience is quite a personal thing,” Williams adds. “If someone was to experience the same thing then it would affect that person differently than how it’s affected me. But I certainly think that there’s lots of weird things that come to mind when you go to a competition.
“Like, for example, Goodwood, when I signed on, you know, doing the sign-in form, doing the next of kin… like, all these little things really, like, upset you.
“Yeah… it feels a lot more serious now doing that than how I’ve ever felt doing it. It’s always just been a tick box, a paper exercise, but now that’s like you accepting that risk, you know? That point where you sign on and you add all the information. It’s like, OK, that’s me going to battle. That’s me going back into that situation. It just fuels your anxiety a little bit; I suppose it did on that event.
“It’s funny how all these little things affect you, where you don’t expect it.”
The call to do the Cambrian was equally last minute. Williams was due to be at the event to look after Bainbridge’s Toyota GR Yaris Rally2, but when Bainbridge had to pull out a decision was made.
But not without a great degree of thought.
“The agreement was that I would go out and not take any risks, just drive around,” says Williams. “But I didn’t want to be s***. You know, at the end of the day, I’m still a competitor. So I tried to just do what I knew I could do really comfortably without putting any pressure on myself.
There were no heroics on his comeback rally, but Williams still finished on the podium
“As the day went on I got more and more back into the rhythm of doing a rally and enjoying it a little bit more, and had a bit of camaraderie with the guys.”
The curveball the 28-year-old didn’t need, though, was stormy weather to make conditions a nightmare.
In the past that might have affected him, but not anymore.
“I just thought ‘I’ve been through tougher things than whatever this rally can throw at me’. So it didn’t really bother me. I was kind of like, whatever, it can rain, it can be sunny, it can be whatever you want. I don’t care. I’m going to get through it. It’s not going to bother me.
“I think that’s probably one of the biggest positives I can take from the whole experience is that my mentality now is so strong. These little things that used to bother me, you know, really don’t anymore.
“It’s quite simple rallying: you’ve just got to be fastest from A to B. Everyone’s on the same road and then off you go. That was the approach I took. And then also I just kept saying to myself that all I’ve got to do is go from here to there. It’s just like driving down the road, just a bit faster than normal. And, yeah, it was good enough for a bonus result, which was really nice.
“But I think, for me, the biggest thing was about getting the car back to the finish because I’ve got a lot of memories with Dai on the Cambrian Rally and doing rallies in Wales. We got third in the BRC championship there in 2022 and we had some celebrations and all this stuff.
James did it for Dai
“And so I thought ‘I just need to do it for him and do it for the family and do it for everyone that’s supporting me to get back here and bank this’ – bank the result and move on. So that’s the approach I took and it seemed to work.
“I’m really glad that I completed that, I did myself proud, did my family proud and did Dai proud and that was what we went there for.”
Having confronted such a big challenge head-on, Williams is working on plans to rally more regularly in 2027. He’s eternally grateful for the rallying family – as well as his own – for sticking by him in what’s been a tremendously devastating period for him and so many others.
“We’ve got some potential plans coming for next year, let’s see how that works out, but I think the biggest difference is I haven’t got any huge pressure to prove anything to anyone anymore,” Williams surmises.
“I know what I can do. I’d like to go out and show it, but I don’t feel the pressure of doing that. I feel like if I’m going to do it, I’ve got motivation to do it for my family, do it for Dai, and that’s all that matters.”
