The champion co-driver with a rollercoaster WRC relationship

“It’s been pretty good” is a typical athlete response to their current run of success. Keaton Williams must have a copy of the script on his bed-side table, but his own monologue tells anything but an ordinary story.

The plot is standard: talented, aspiring co-driver with an eye on the World Rally Championship who eventually realizes their dream. But almost as soon as Williams made it, the dream was ripped away from him and his rallying future was anything but certain.

Chosen to partner Toyota works driver Takamoto Katsuta as Daniel Barritt was ruled out with a back injury, Williams was in for Ypres and lined up for the Acropolis, but a family emergency on the week of the Acropolis gave Williams a huge decision to make. Nobly, he flew home and risked his entire career in the process.

Aaron Johnston replaced Williams and remains by Katsuta’s side to this day, but Williams has since landed on his feet as a factory co-driver for Subaru Motorsports USA and a two-time American Rally Association champion with Brandon Semenuk. Only an absurd set of circumstances would deny him from making that three this season.

But with the three-year anniversary of his sudden WRC departure fast approaching, and a world championship return to discuss, now felt like a good time to check back in with Williams and discover where his career is now headed.

A brave choice rewarded

Nobody ever expects to have their priorities seriously tested, but Williams did in September 2021.

He stands by his choice – even if he admits he sometimes still wonders whether it was the right one.

“To be honest, I still wake up sometimes thinking I shouldn’t have left Toyota, but then other times I think it was the right decision,” Williams tells DirtFish. “So even three years on, I’m still on the fence whether it was the right thing to do.

“I didn’t quite know which way my career was going to go or if I’d have a career at all because once you leave like that from WRC, it’s pretty hard to get back in. But yeah luckily enough, I managed to get a test with Brandon at the end of ’21. Then, of course, the rest is history.

“We’ve won the ARA championship twice, probably the big one being 2022 where we had some real good competition with Ken [Block]. For a national championship, it was everything you wanted. It was right down to the last round and we were… literally, every stage had to be max attack.

“Everything had to be 110%. All the prep, all the work from the team, the engineers, it was a proper battle, which was good for us, but of course it was good for the spectators and everyone involved in rallying. Since then, it’s kind of fizzled out a little bit.

“We’re still operating at a very high and professional level, but unfortunately we don’t have the competition to keep us on our toes as much as we’d probably like. Everyone’s got their own view on that. But equally, being competitors, we want competition. We want to be in there with five, 10 guys just mixing and swapping stage times and battling and risking stuff when you shouldn’t really have to.

“But that’s why everyone loves rallying, because they like the competition aspect. We’ve definitely missed out on that, but still, you know, we’re there and it’s our job to be ambassadors of the brand of Subaru and showcase what Subaru Motorsports and Vermont SportsCar can really put out there – and I have to say the new car we’ve developed this year is awesome.

“And as everyone knows, rallying in America is very much in its own little world at the minute in terms of the rules, the regs, and just the car. It’s very much a clubman championship but with a manufacturer team there. And to be honest, Americans are very lucky to have Subaru there for the last 23, 24 years because, especially in Britain, we’ve seen how the BRC has been affected by the lack of manufacturers from what it was.

“OK, it’s coming back now, but even then, you need that manufacturer backing. I think there might be people that don’t quite see it like that from a marketing and commercial point of view, but you need these manufacturers in.

“But yeah, you know, I didn’t really have much expectation when I sat with Brandon – not because I doubted his talent, but more so because it was kind of new to me being in Europe, you know, it’s like us, European rallying is our culture and we see fast European drivers, but for someone who wasn’t in a rally car from the age of 16 like the Rovanperäs [of this world], he was kind of out there, but kind of in the sidelines a little bit.

“But for me at the time, it was the perfect step to take into and I was very lucky to be able to get the test and then develop with Brandon to where we are now in ’24. So, from where I was in ’21 to now, I didn’t expect to be where I am, but equally there’s still more to come.

“I still want to be back in WRC. Last month reminded me of that a little bit more than I wanted!”

That’s a very long and insightful answer with plenty to unpick, but the immediate point to address is the repercussions of the decision to leave Toyota.

While Williams would prefer to have never been put in the situation that he was, there is a lesson for everyone to learn in what he did. It was a brave move that perhaps doesn’t make sense to everyone, but you can’t say it’s worked out too badly for him.

“If there was somebody else who was in the same position and I hadn’t been through it before, I’d think exactly the same,” Williams says.

“But until you’re in that position of like, do I stay or do I go now and risk my job? And at that point in time, on that day, on that hour, I chose to go home. And at the end of the day, if people disagree, then it’s up to them. Everyone’s entitled to their own opinion.

“The thing is being a co-driver, you can dip in, and I was still young enough that I was able to drop out of it and then hopefully come back. If anything, it’s given me more drive than what I did back then.

“Even now, I think I’m a better co-driver than I was back then so maybe there was a bit of grace to that, you know, I’m a bit more experienced, I’ve been through more scenarios, I do stuff slightly different, and it’s just, yeah, maybe there was a saving grace in it, I don’t know.

“But listen, it’s the past now, I can’t change it, and it is what it is.”

That’s our cue to move on.

Realizing any ’90s child’s dream

The blue and yellow of Subaru is almost more famous than rallying itself. For anyone of Williams’ age, the brand is particularly special as it helped introduce him to this bonkers sport.

To represent them today is a massive pinch-himself moment.

“It is definitely,” he says, “and I was born in ’95 and I grew up watching the McRae and the Mäkinen and all that kind of stuff, then there’s Stéphane Sarrazin – I still remember him, some of the footage of him, which really blew me away.

“But definitely the blue and yellow is iconic in rallying and still to be involved in that brand now, I would never dream of it back younger. OK, it’s in America, but there’s still a manufacturer supported team, and that’s quite an important thing.

“Like I said before, they’ve been in it for 23, 24 years I think it is now, I can’t remember off the top of my head, but just to be around and wearing the Subaru logos on your race overalls, it definitely fills you full of pride.”

Unlike in 2023, Williams and Semenuk have a team-mate to race in Travis Pastrana too which is making matters both more fun but also helpful, as the Canadian-British crew has a rival to race and learn from.

“Like I said before, we need competition to be able to push ourselves and keep developing as a team, as a crew. To have Travis back with his years of experience is perfect. It’s what we need.

“Travis has always got this unbelievable talent where he can have four different tires on the car and still put in a stage time which makes you raise your eyebrows. Even just having another person’s data, OK they drive differently but it’s still nice to have a reference and you know Travis is one of those guys where he literally puts everything on the table and just goes for it so you can never really write him off.

“You know he’s good for the sport, he’s great for the spectators, he’s a real nice guy to be around and it definitely brings that enjoyment level back to it. But ultimately you know we’re racing hard together and Brandon and Travis want to beat each other. So, it’s been pretty good so far.”

Their battle will continue at the Ojibwe Forests Rally this weekend, with Semenuk and Williams chasing a fifth win from six starts this season.

A WRC return

But before that, Semenuk got his first taste of the WRC by entering July’s Rally Latvia in a Toyota GR Yaris Rally2 he paid for himself.

It was a bit of a full-circle moment for Williams as he was back in WRC competition for the first time in three years, but the goal was for Semenuk to simply enjoy himself and see where he stacked up against the best in WRC2.

“That challenge and that aspect kind of excited me a little bit because I thought, well, we’re coming in from a different angle to what the normal European entry is into the sport,” Williams shares.

“I know how quick he is given the right day and when the car’s good and his notes are good and everything like that. But we just needed everything to tie up just a little bit and just to have a clean run to see where he is on the rostrum.

“So yeah, it was definitely interesting going in. And hats off to Brandon for even putting the deal together and having a go, because there’s no hiding in the WRC. You have a bad split or a bad stage time, you’re exposed for it. But yeah, for me, it was like a long time coming, I wanted him to make the move and just see how he held up compared to everyone else.”

The rally didn’t end in the best fashion when Semenuk was caught out at the end of Saturday’s leg: “We just went a little bit wide on a fast corner and the rear just went onto the loose and then dropped off the side of the road and unfortunately for us there was a big ditch, [we] hit the ditch, and the rest was history,” Williams says.

“It wasn’t a huge mistake. It was a small one, in fact, but at those kind of speeds, these things happen. Yeah it’s gutting and it’s annoying, but it’s just part of the game. It really is.”

Some were quick to criticize Semenuk’s performance and use it as a way of detracting the quality of the ARA, but considering Semenuk was working with a new team, driving a new car and competing in a completely new championship on a new continent, Williams feels he made a good account of himself.

“Unless you’re really there with him side by side, you don’t appreciate how much work he puts into his rallying,” Williams says. “Same as he does his riding, but just, you know, he thinks about everything, he puts every hour of the day into it.

“We even brought our own engineer, a British guy Steve Dunlop. A really experienced guy. We brought him across to work with SRT, and just to create that bridge, sometimes that language barrier, because Steve knows how Brandon drives and what he likes, like he was doing everything in his power to kind of, before we get in that car, ‘I have done the best preparation, I’ve gone through everything I can, and from this point on, what will be, will be’.

“So that’s the kind of person we’re dealing with in Brandon. He’s very, very intelligent and methodical in the way he does stuff. But obviously, like you said, people see the stage times and think, well, he’s dropped a minute there, four and a half minutes by the time he went off. But in our team, we understand the position we’re in.

“We’ve seen some progress, and no doubt if we did Finland then you would have seen a little bit more progress. But for his first time, from his position and where he’s come from, his first time in that car against the best in the world, I think was pretty strong.”

For now, there are no more plans for Semenuk in the WRC as he and Williams zone in on chasing a third straight American title. But Williams admits he would love to get back to the WRC again one day, having been reminded of the buzz it gives any competitor.

“Well, I’m still very young in my career, I’m not even 30 yet. So to be working with Subaru is a great program going out there and representing the brand and working with Brandon and some of the stages are fantastic.

“But definitely when I grew up, in my early stages of the career, I was working with the likes of ex-WRC co-drivers like Craig Parry, Dan Barritt, Seb Marshall, Nicky Grist, you know, and they kind of brought you to a level in which you should be operating and the prep you should be doing. And those methods of preparation were all meant for WRC.

“And the challenge that the WRC gives you, you don’t get anywhere else in the world. And that aspect of it is probably the biggest thing I miss. Maybe one day I’ll go back.

“But for now, my full focus is in America with Subaru.”