McKlein photographers Reinhard Klein and Colin McMaster have seen the World Rally Championship’s biggest stars up close and personal, in-car and out, making them perfectly placed to put together a definitive top 10 of WRC drivers. They have considered not only their driving skills and relative results, but also their characters and performances in front of a lens.
Disclaimer: This is a subjective Top 10, based purely on the opinions and feelings of Reinhard Klein [RK] & Colin McMaster [CM].
=9. Marcus Grönholm
CM: In an era when personalities are becoming more and more PR controlled, Marcus Grönholm has stood out as being his own man and he’s never afraid to say, or act out, whatever is in his head. Grönholm is a real character. Ask him to pose for a particular photo and nine times out of 10 he’ll do it, happily. Another thing I like about him is that he is very tall, like me. When I’m shooting portraits of him, our eye levels are similar and that often means I am more balanced and relaxed, which in turn means I can concentrate more on making him look good. I do like photographing Grönholm, he has such expression in his face.
=9. Richard Burns
CM: Burnsie was my best friend, but I much preferred his company away from the stages. At the rallies he was one hell of a calculating driver who worked harder than anybody else at being the best in the world. He won the World Championship in 2001, probably the most competitive year ever, when seven manufacturer teams entered - some with three cars. When Burns put the helmet went on, he was a different guy to the youthful, jovial, cheeky young chap I knew from chilling out at his house or a night out in a pub in Oxford. He always paid a lot of attention to his image and was always game to try something different, especially if it would make a good photo opportunity. This backfired once when we went on holiday in Kenya after he’d won the 1998 Safari Rally. I’d bought some blonde hair dye and he tried it on his locks. For a couple of weeks, he went from being ginger to bright orange.
8. Tommi Mäkinen
CM: Tommi Mäkinen is often misunderstood and underrated. To win four straight world titles [1996-1999] he had to beat Colin McRae in his prime and Carlos Sainz, not far off his. It always struck me just how precise Mäkinen’s driving style was, particularly for a Finn. He seldom went super-sideways - instead, he used every inch of the road and no more. He also chose exactly the right time to retire and that gains him extra respect from me. It’s fitting today that Mäkinen is now a successful WRC title-winning team principal himself with Toyota. By his own admission he learnt much of what he knows of the job from his former Mitsubishi boss Andrew Cowan. Both are true gentlemen of the WRC. Tenacious gents too. RK: Mäkinen was like a metronomic machine in the late '90s and totally ice-cool as he swept all his competition aside. He would make a great poker player, you could never tell his emotions from looking at his face.
7. Petter Solberg
CM: In my opinion no other top line WRC driver has had the charisma of Colin McRae, only one has come close: Petter Solberg. Unlike McRae, Solberg could never be labelled as shy or introverted, instead he is the WRC’s greatest showman. He always wears his heart on his sleeve and says how he feels. His greatest years as a driver coincided with a new wave of reporting and TV coverage, as suddenly we had access to the stage-end comments of the drivers. Solberg made great viewing, always coming up with a good quote. His exuberant celebrations in Margam Park after clinching the 2003 WRC title just summed the man up: emotional, yet genuine. The entire Solberg family live, breathe, eat and sleep rallying 24/7, so it’s no surprise that Petter’s son Oliver is making big waves at the tender age of 18. It’s quite feasible that some time in the near future, the name Solberg will be etched once more on the WRC Drivers’ trophy.
6. Stig Blomqvist
RK: Another very natural driver and an easy-going person, very mature in himself. All Stig Blomqvist wants is a car and a beer and he is on top form. He’s been like this since 1965 when he was second on the 1000 Lakes Rally in Finland driving a Saab and still in 2019 when he was second overall on the East African Safari Classic in a Porsche, after nine days driving flat-out in Africa on open roads. Blomqvist was always looking for a nice life and not trying to rack up as many wins or titles as possible. In the '70s he stayed loyal to Saab for too long and missed out on many other opportunities before going to Audi. On the 2019 Eifel Rally Festival, Luis Moya [co-driver to Carlos Sainz] wanted to co-drive Blomqvist for the first time and his comments sum it all up: “Stig is so relaxed, with everything so under control, the car sliding gently, but hardly ever moves the steering wheel.”
5. Colin McRae
CM: Colin McRae was the most naturally talented driver I ever saw. His flamboyant driving style made him a fans’ favourite all over the world. He was entertaining both on and off the stages, living every moment of his (way-too-short) life to the full. When I first met him in 1993, he was quite shy and unassuming. Prodrive hired me to photograph him away from the rallies, but he wasn’t interested in posing for PR photography, he just wanted to get his hands on anything that would go fast, be it cars, bikes, boats, skis etc. I had a lot of fun shooting him behind-the-scenes and it always amazed me how quickly he could master anything mechanical. Colin was also extremely generous with both his time and money and he always looked after his friends. It was a real honor to be considered one of them. No longer with us, the legend of Colin McRae continues to grow. RK: If I went to a location on a stage where I thought there could be some big action, Colin McRae was always the one who set the benchmark. He was a real joy to photograph driving a rally car.
4. Björn Waldegård
RK: Björn Waldegård was a relaxed, easy-going person who was fast everywhere in his prime . He won on asphalt (Sanremo), on snow (Sweden), in the blind (RAC, when it was on maps), anywhere on gravel (Greece and more), in mixed conditions (Monte Carlo) and in Africa (Safari). His era was a time when the events were very different from one other and the terrains were often much stronger than the cars. Yes, you had to have speed, but you also had to know how to pace yourself to make it to the finish. Waldegård also won the last WRC event that was won by clever navigation. This was the 1990 Safari where his and his co-driver's skilled "noses" smelt the best way through a muddy section and everyone else got stuck. CM: The first time I properly met Björn Waldegård was in 2011 in Tanzania, the night my father died. We shared a table over dinner and the big man [Björn means ‘bear’ in Swedish] spoke with me as an equal. He cheered me up and I learned a lot about life that night.
3. Carlos Sainz
CM: Those eyes! Poet William Blake wrote, ‘To see a World in a grain of sand’, and, from my perspective, down-a-lens, that’s what I see when shooting portraits of Carlos Sainz. This man’s eyes have a surreal depth, there’s a lot going on in there. Working with him at Subaru in 1994 and ’95 was an incredible experience, though it wasn’t always plain sailing. Sainz can be a tricky customer and if he’s not in the right mood for a photo, then he’ll let you know. The fact that he’s still winning Dakar rallies at 58 years old says just how fit and motivated he is. Recently voted the greatest WRC friver of all time in a public poll run by the WRC speaks volumes for Sainz’s global popularity. RK: The opposite of Stig Blomqvist, Sainz is a very hard worker everywhere, exhausting himself behind the steering wheel, coming out of stages completely finished, always planning, thinking, checking, improving and trying to be better, driven by himself. This has made for some great images of him working on his car and preparing himself between the stages. But he’s a really good driver too - what makes him great is that many of the results were achieved with hard work.
=1. Sébastien Ogier
RK: Sébastien Ogier is the successor of Sébastien Loeb in a very similar style - ultimately fast in the flat-out generation, ruthless when he needs to be and totally relaxed when he wants. All his wins speak for themselves, but compared to Loeb he changed teams frequently during his years and had to adjust to them, or them to him. He won rallies for Citroën, Volkswagen, Ford and Toyota. CM: I’ll be honest, of the two Sebs who’ve dominated 13 straight years of WRC, I’d put Ogier ahead of Loeb. I’m a big fan, but it wasn’t always like that. I didn’t like the somewhat arrogant Ogier when he first arrived on the scene back in 2008, driving a little Citroën C2 in the JWRC. Now I totally respect him, he has a huge aura around him - even today he’s the only guy in WRC I’m slightly nervous around. He’s never been shy to express an opinion in public, positive or negative, and he can be a touch spikey at times - especially when a camera is pointing in his face. I really like that, you get genuine emotion from Ogier. He’s always thinking about the ultimate prize of the world championship title, rather than outright rally wins - a bit like Richard Burns did. I think he is highly intelligent, however he is probably the most ruthless and self-determined person I've ever met in my life. It says a lot for the calculated approach of Ogier that he was willing to take one step down into a S2000 Škoda in order to take two steps up a year later when Volkswagen entered the WRC as a factory team. That brought four straight world titles.
=1. Sébastien Loeb
CM: If this was about statistics, then Sébastien Loeb would be the perennial number one on everybody’s list. But there’s way more to sport than winning. What I admire most about Loeb is his total humble honesty and his down-to-earth character. After all the success, money and fame, he is essentially still the electrician from Alsace, exactly as he was when he first got in a rally car over 20 years ago. I’ve always enjoyed photographing Loeb, but I don’t think he cares much about how he looks in photos, he’s too cool to worry about that. RK: In a generation of flat-out only driving, it was amazing to see that when the opposition moved in on him, Loeb could still pull more speed out of the bag to win. The fact that he found enough extra seconds and secured wins on all rallies, on all continents makes him my greatest of all time.
