Picking a highlight from a rallying career isn’t too difficult when it’s only four events old.
But no matter what Claire Schönborn does next, it will take a lot to top Rally Sweden 2025 for just how transformational it ultimately was.
With a weaker performance, there would have been no question of what comes next. We would not be having a conversation about her rallying career. Coming out on top of WRC Promoter’s Beyond Rally Driver Development Program has completely changed the 25-year-old’s life plan.
For the better, just for the avoidance of doubt!
“This program means everything to me,” Schönborn tells DirtFish, two weeks after beating Lyssia Baudet to the funded Junior WRC season in 2025.
“It’s the only chance I’ve got so I wanted with everything to win this, and now it’s finally done I’m focused fully on this program to get step by step closer to my main goal.
“That’s my life now. [Winning in Sweden has] changed nearly everything. Now everything is focused on rallying.”
Schönborn's life has flipped upside down following her drive at Rally Sweden
An engineer by trade, Schönborn wasn’t a total motorsport rookie prior to rallying with experience (and success) in hillclimb races.
But WRC Promoter’s open invite to female drivers last summer to apply for the Beyond Rally program shifted her focus and dared her to dream.
Picked as part of a shortlist of 15 to attend M-Sport Poland’s headquarters in September for a ‘training camp’, where drivers were tested on their mechanical knowledge and media skills as well as their ability behind the wheel, Schönborn – along with Baudet and Suvi Jyrkiäinen – progressed to a real-world shootout at October’s Central European Rally.
With judges unable to select a winner between Schönborn and Baudet, both were entered into February’s Rally Sweden. But only one could win. With a burning desire to make it, and absolutely no fallback plan if she didn’t, Schönborn and co-driver Jara Hain gave it their all and will now continue their WRC journey with further starts in Portugal, Greece, Finland and again in Central Europe.
It may seem as if the hard work is done, but in reality it’s only just beginning.
“I’m so happy and grateful for this unique chance,” Schönborn says. “But now the really hard work starts to prepare as best as we can for the rest of the season.
“The preparation for Sweden was hard, but now it’s an even harder way through the whole season. So now, as I said, the real work starts because I’ve never driven properly on gravel before.”
Tarmac was the only surface broadly familiar to Schönborn prior to 2025
This is not a new situation for Schönborn, who’d never driven on snow before Sweden either. However so far, her gravel experience in a rally car totals just 2km!
“It’s not a lot,” she laughs.
But if Schönborn has proved anything in her career so far, it’s how fast a learner she is. To go from zero experience in a rally car at all to a full Junior WRC season six months later doesn’t happen without the ability to adapt and acclimatize quickly.
Co-driver Hain is herself still learning her craft, but currently has 20x the experience Schönborn does – also navigating for Rally2 driver Albert von Thurn und Taxis.
She stepped in for Schönborn’s second-ever rally last year and has been blown away by the progress she’s seen.
“The progress she made is really, really huge. I’m not saying this because she became a big friend of mine but because she’s really, really talented and improving a lot,” Hain tells DirtFish.
“When she’s interacting with the coaches she listens really carefully and tries to do everything they are explaining to her. And when we did our first rally together, it was Herbst Rally last year in Austria, the first stage overall was in really tough conditions and I was impressed from the first kilometer how she is doing with the pacenotes and how she is trusting in me.
Schönborn is credited as being a fast learner
“And I guess that’s a really important thing to be a good rally driver, that you trust your co-driver – and that was also the proof for me that it makes sense to continue this project [with her].
“Albert, my regular driver, is really impressed by her and supports our project. Now I have a shared cockpit with both drivers!”
Schönborn has already learned from hugely experienced drivers, including two-time World Rally champion Marcus Grönholm, renowned coach Kristian Sohlberg and multiple WRC podium finisher Teemu Suninen who continues to guide her.
“We are planning to do some recce training, also some driving training if it’s possible before Portugal,” Schönborn explains.
“But nothing is fixed at the moment because we need to secure the budget.”
The goal is to one day be able to drive in the WRC series in a Rally1 carClaire Schönborn
But there’s no chance that’s going to get in Schönborn’s way. Now she’s realized a dream, there’s no reason to stop.
“The goal is to one day be able to drive in the WRC series in a Rally1 car,” she smiles.
Had you told her that six months ago, there’s no way she’d have believed you.
“No way – I was laughing at me!” she laughs. “This is all something I’ve never imagined, it’s unbelievable.
“Even now, two weeks afterwards, I understand what happened but… yeah, if I think so deeply, it’s just unbelievable.”
Rally1 will have to wait, as she’s got a Junior WRC season in Rally3 to worry about first. And her targets are measured.
Sweden is done and dusted - focus is now on the gravel events that come next
“The main goal is to learn as much as we can this year, so we need to stay a bit realistic because all the other boys in the WRC are driving so many times during a year and are so experienced. They’ve been driving since they are 12 years old.
“So the goal is to get as much [experience] as we can and hopefully to be one of the top three [later in the year], that’s a dream, and we will see if this can happen at the end of the year.”
With a whirlwind six months like she’s had, would it really be so far-fetched for that to happen in another six?
“I would like to thank all my supporters because without them it would not have been possible. And of course, a big thank you to the WRC Promoter for this really, really big shootout,” Schönborn concludes.
“It was a dream for all the female race drivers and I hope that they will continue and get some Michèle Moutons in the next years. For the rally sport, I think it’s a big point.”
