Historically, Sébastien Ogier’s victory on last weekend’s Rally Spain was important in more ways than one.
Not only did it ensure he maintained his record of winning at least one event when in a top-line car since his first win back in 2010, but notably it was also his first success with anyone other than Julien Ingrassia.
In Spain, it was Benjamin Veillas calling the notes (for what we now know was the final time), meaning Ogier has now left the club of WRC drivers to win with just one co-driver.
You’d perhaps assume that it’s a small group that Ogier has now joined, but you’d be surprised. Of the current crop of manufacturer drivers, more drivers have won with more than one co-driver than with just the single navigator. And of the top eight winners in WRC history, just one has won all their rallies with the one co-driver.
Intrigued? We certainly hope so, as here is a list of all the WRC drivers to win with just one co-driver – as ever, brought to you in partnership with ewrc-results.com.
Drivers who have won just one WRC rally are considered ineligible for the list given it is impossible for them to have won with more than one co-driver.
Achim Warmbold
Depending on your age, Jean Todt may be best known to you as the Ferrari Formula 1 team’s figurehead when Michael Schumacher was at his peak, Peugeot’s boss during the Group B 205 T16 days, or even the FIA president.
But it’s his time alongside German rally driver Achim Warmbold that’s relevant for this list.
Back in 1973 when the WRC was first established as solely a contest for manufacturers, Warmbold won both the Polish and Austrian rounds of the championship.
Although Warmbold did so for two different marques – Fiat and BMW – and did compete with another co-driver in 1973 (John Davenport), both his victories were scored with Todt in the co-drivers’ seat.
Joginder Singh
Joginder Singh’s WRC presence was restricted only to his native Safari Rally, but it was an event he managed to conquer twice – first in 1974 with a Mitsubishi Colt Lancer and then again two years later in a Mitsubishi Lancer 1600 GSR.
Like Warmbold, Singh did use a few co-drivers throughout his career but he only ever won when partnered with David Doig.
Bruno Saby
While Bruno Saby was never the spearhead of Peugeot’s Group B challenge, he was an effective operator and delivered the marque victory on his home event, the Tour de Corse, in 1986.
It wasn’t a weekend for celebration though given the fatal accident that claimed the lives of Henri Toivonen and Sergio Cresto, meaning it perhaps has to be chalked up as one of the forgotten WRC wins.
There would be no dark cloud hanging over Saby’s second and final WRC victory two years later on the Monte Carlo Rally though, this time for Lancia in a Group A Delta.
Jean-François Fauchille was entrusted with co-driving on both occasions.
Ingvar Carlsson
Ingvar Carlsson was an integral part of Mazda’s WRC program in the ’80s and early ’90s, joining the squad in 1984 to develop the rear-wheel-drive RX-7 and then the 323 4WD when it made its debut in ’86.
The plucky Mazda was often outgunned by the might of Lancia and Toyota’s burgeoning Celica project, but it did have its successes and Carlsson guided the 323 to two WRC wins in 1989.
The first was claimed on home soil in Sweden before he won on his very next start in New Zealand too.
Carlsson had a few different co-drivers throughout his career but stuck with Per Carlsson – no relation – through the later years and thus claimed his two WRC victories with him.
Mikael Ericsson
It’s unusual to say the least for a driver to take their first WRC rally win, change team for the next event and yet win again. But that’s exactly what Mikael Ericsson achieved in 1989.
Signed by Lancia in ’86 to drive a Delta S4 after some eye-catching results in an Audi, Ericsson stuck with the brand for the next two seasons (aside from a brief Nissan cameo on the 1987 Olympus) as the WRC transitioned from Group B to Group A.
Rally Argentina 1989 proved to be his breakthrough as Ericsson took his first world championship rally win, but it also proved to be his last in Lancia colors. But no matter, he would drive a Mitsubishi Galant in Finland and showed Lancia what it was missing by winning that too.
Eventually he would migrate to Toyota for the next three years alongside co-driver Claes Billstam who was also there for Ericsson’s two WRC wins.
Kenjiro Shinozuka
Japan’s only WRC winner to date, Kenjiro Shinozuka was unearthed by Mitsubishi which produced cars that powered him to his two WRC victories.
The first was on the 1991 Ivory Coast event where Shinozuka absolutely dominated in his Galant to win by over two hours, alongside co-driver John Meadows.
Returning the year after in the same car with the same co-driver, but now with the #1 on the door, Shinozuka did it again to beat Bruno Thiry to the 1992 win.
Throughout his 20-event WRC career Shinozuka used seven different co-drivers but Meadows was the only one who guided him to the top step of the podium.
Mats Jonsson
Mats Jonsson was never a WRC full-timer, instead making an impression in his native Sweden, Finland and Rally GB in particular. It therefore comes as little surprise that his two WRC victories both came at home.
The first was claimed on his one and only start of the 1992 season, although it’s a rally best remembered for Colin McRae’s heroic drive to second in a Legacy RS.
A year later, still with Toyota, Jonsson doubled up to defend his victory by a slender 13 seconds over team-mate and that year’s world champion Juha Kankkunen.
Lars Bäckman wasn’t always Jonsson’s co-driver, but he was along for the ride for both victories.
Philippe Bugalski
Philippe Bugalski stunned (and upset) the WRC when he stormed to back-to-back victories in 1999 with a Formula 2 Kit Car Citroën Xsara.
Much to the ire of the works teams running World Rally Cars, the F2 machine had a better power-to-weight ratio and was able to win and steal valuable championship points from the title protagonists in Spain and Corsica.
Jean-Paul Chiaroni was the one in the so-called silly seat on both occasions and indeed for the rest of Bugalski’s career.
Bugalski sadly lost his life 10 years ago. DirtFish paid tribute to him a decade on.
Timo Mäkinen
The original Mäkinen, Timo was a superstar of the early days of the WRC – even if he was never credited with a world title.
His early career was forged making a name for himself in a Mini but by the time the WRC was born he was firmly a Ford driver, and Mäkinen duly won all four of his WRC events in an Escort with Henry Liddon alongside.
He won co-driver Liddon’s home event, Rally GB, three years in a row (1973, ’74 and ’75) as well as his own local rally, Rally Finland, in 1973 for what was his first WRC victory.
Mäkinen and Liddon’s partnership wouldn’t last forever as Jean Todt came in for the late ’70s, but Mäkinen would never win again.
Michèle Mouton
Michèle Mouton remains the only female driver to win in the WRC, and she did so with a female co-driver – Fabrizia Pons – by her side.
The French/Italian duo proved a major point to the world when they were signed by Audi and won the 1981 Sanremo Rally, and from there they mounted a title charge in 1982 that oh-so-nearly bore fruit.
Three further victories would come that year (Portugal, Greece and Brazil) but an accident when leading the Ivory Coast Rally put paid to Mouton’s title dream.
Pons’ career lasted far longer than Mouton’s, but the pair forged one of the most formidable partnerships in WRC history which – despite a couple of events apart – only ended when Mouton retired after 1986.
François Delecour
There are many what ifs in WRC history, but how far François Delecour’s career could have gone had he not suffered that famous road accident in a Ferrari F40 in 1994 has to be right up there with the best of them.
Delecour’s passion always made him an entertaining watch, but he was a fiercely competitive driver. Heartbreak on the 1993 Monte spurred him on to win his next event in Portugal, and he and the Ford Escort Cosworth would win on the asphalt of Corsica and Spain to claim a fine second in the championship.
A vengeance victory on the 1994 Monte underlined Delecour’s status as a title contender but that accident off the stages broke both of his legs. It was a stunning effort to return to competition just four months later, but the incident had cost Delecour his best shot at WRC success and cruelly he’d never win again.
Although there was a season spent alongside Catherine François in 1995, Daniel Grataloup was the only navigator who guided Delecour to victory and would remain Delecour’s co-driver all the way to 2002.
Markko Märtin
Markko Märtin and Michael Park’s WRC story is one of massively unfulfilled potential given the tragic accident that claimed Park’s life on Rally GB, 2005.
First linking up in 2000 as Märtin drove a private Toyota Corolla WRC, the pair were snapped up by Subaru before Ford poached them for 2002 and gave them their greatest successes.
Their first win on the 2003 Acropolis had been a long time coming – and was no mean feat given the bizarre scenes when the hood on Märtin’s Focus WRC flipped up over the windshield on stage.
But that victory set the tone for a famous win in Finland before three more wins in 2004 in México and then back-to-back in Corsica and Spain. A move to Peugeot failed to deliver any more wins before it was ultimately cut short.
Kris Meeke
Kris Meeke has used a spate of different co-drivers in his WRC career including both Chris and Glenn Patterson and Sebastian Marshall, but it’s with Paul Nagle that he achieved his big things.
Winning the 2009 Intercontinental Rally Challenge title together, Meeke and Nagle joined Mini’s WRC program full of hope only for the program to disappear almost as quickly as it had begun.
Finding refuge at Citroën in 2014, the pair won five rallies together – most famously Finland 2016 and México 2017 where they flew off into a car park on the final stage but still won.
Meeke and Nagle went their separate ways after being sacked by Citroën halfway through 2018, but neither would win a WRC rally again.
Bernard Darniche
One of the WRC’s original stars, Bernard Darniche won a strong 18.4% of his WRC starts and achieved them all with the same co-driver: Alain Mahé.
The first came in Morocco within the cockpit of an Alpine A110, but the other six were claimed in Italian machines – and mostly in Lancias.
Darniche and Mahé won four events in a Stratos and two, the 1977 and 1978 Tour de Corse, in a Fiat 131 Abarth.
But like the pair of Frenchmen up next on this list, incredibly Darniche’s entire WRC career was spent alongside Mahé. Little wonder he never won a rally with anyone else!
Gilles Panizzi
Given Gilles Panizzi’s co-driver, Hervé Panizzi, was his younger brother, it’s probably little surprise to see his name appear on this list.
Indeed, Gilles Panizzi didn’t just win all seven of his WRC rallies alongside the same co-driver, he never had another navigator alongside him at any point in his WRC career.
Their most famous moment was undoubtedly the crowd-pleasing donuts at a famous Rally Spain hairpin 2002 that caught Hervé unawares – performed in an era where the Panizzis were simply invincible on Tarmac with Peugeot’s 206 WRC.
You can find out more about Panizzi’s career in the DirtFish feature published last year.
Kalle Rovanperä
As an active competitor, this year’s world champion could one day erase himself from this list and exit the club if he ever competes, and indeed wins, without Jonne Halttunen. But these two have one of the strongest partnerships in the business, so you’d get long odds on the likelihood of that happening.
At the time of writing, Rovanperä and Halttunen have won eight rallies together and six of them in 2022 en route to their maiden world title.
Rovanperä has driven without Halttunen before, but never in the WRC – although Halttunen did have a few WRC starts to his name before teaming up with Rovanperä.
Richard Burns
Aside from his WRC debut in 1990 on Rally GB behind the wheel of a Peugeot 309, Richard Burns’ entire WRC career was spent with current FIA deputy president sport Robert Reid calling the notes.
Their first victory came on the Safari no less in 1998 and that opened the floodgates for more as the pair moved to Subaru and made history.
They claimed seven victories in the Impreza WRC across ’99 and 2000 before lifting the 2001 title – winning just one event all year in New Zealand.
Burns was a title contender for the next two seasons in a Peugeot but wouldn’t ever win another rally before his career was cut short by a brain tumor that sadly claimed his life in 2005.
Petter Solberg
Another iconic partnership that won the world championship together and never won a WRC round apart: Petter Solberg and Phil Mills.
Solberg did have other co-drivers – particularly Chris Patterson for two and a half years when Mills called time on his career midway through 2010 – but Solberg’s WRC success was all concentrated within a narrow 2002-05 window.
The first win came at the very end of 2002 in Wales before, 12 months later, Solberg and Mills won again to lift the world title.
The duo won 13 times throughout their career, each and every time for Subaru.
Mikko Hirvonen
Mikko Hirvonen’s first foray into the WRC with a Renault Clio S1600 was with Jari-Matti Latvala’s future co-driver Miikka Anttila, but from then on it was Jarmo Lehtinen who guided Hirvonen through his career.
The late 2000s were the most prosperous for the pair who first won in 2006 but claimed four wins on the bounce in 2009 to take the world title challenge to Sébastien Loeb and Daniel Elena right the way down to the final day of the season.
The duo won a total of 15 world rallies throughout their career – 14 of those with Ford and just one of them for Citroën in Sardinia 2012.
Jari-Matti Latvala
It’s rather apt that the most experienced driver in World Rally Championship history should have done all but four of his 209 WRC rallies with the same co-driver alongside him.
That co-driver was Miikka Anttila.
Latvala and Anttila’s relationship began in 2003 when Latvala was just 17, and grew into one that yielded 18 WRC wins – beginning with Rally Sweden 2008.
Although the world title he so dearly craved eluded him, Latvala always had Anttila alongside him when he was competing as an official manufacturer-backed driver.
Ott Tänak
The second of two active drivers on the list, Ott Tänak has used four co-drivers throughout his WRC career but won all 17 of his WRC events, and the 2019 world championship, alongside Martin Järveoja.
Tänak and Järveoja’s relationship began in 2017 just as Tänak’s career began to hit top gear. Re-signed to the M-Sport team, Tänak finally broke his WRC winning duck in Sardinia and then won again in Germany, before a move to Toyota brought several wins and a title.
In the last three years the pair have struggled to hit the same heights through a troubled period with Hyundai – a period that will come to an end after Rally Japan later this year.
Tänak and Järveoja’s partnership is showing no signs of ending any time soon though, unless of course Tänak elects to retire from the WRC which certainly cannot be entirely discounted.
Markku Alén
The WRC’s most famous nearly man as winner of the 1986 world crown before the result was overturned, Markku Alén, has that as an unwanted record, but may take solace in the fact his loyalty with co-driver Ilkka Kivimäki is uncommon for a driver who has won so many rallies.
Kivimäki wasn’t the only co-driver Alén ever competed with – there was Juhani Toivonen, Atso Aho, Paul White and Ilkka Riipinen – but Alén and Kivimäki forged a partnership that would last some 20 years from 1973-1993.
During that time they drove, and won, in a large variety of cars across different eras including the Fiat 131, Lancia Stratos, 037, Delta S4 and Integrale.
Although they would never clinch that world title, Alén did win the 1978 Cup for Rally Drivers (the WRC’s precursor) and 19 events at world level.
Marcus Grönholm
While the Sébastien Loeb/Daniel Elena and Sébastien Ogier/Julien Ingrassia partnerships have both won more WRC rallies than Marcus Grönholm and Timo Rautiainen have together, Grönholm is the driver with the most WRC wins that has never won with multiple co-drivers.
Grönholm and his brother-in-law Rautiainen first linked up in 1996 as Grönholm fought for a full-time opportunity with a works team. Peugeot’s relaunched campaign with the 206 WRC represented that opportunity, and the rest as they say is history.
In 2000 Grönholm took his first WRC rally win, and then nine months later he won his first world title too. Another championship followed in 2002 as Grönholm and Rautiainen racked up 18 wins for Peugeot from 2000-05.
When Peugeot pulled out of the WRC, Grönholm migrated to Ford and won a further 12 events across two years – giving Loeb his hardest challenge for the title during that nine-year spell of domination.
In total, 49 drivers have won multiple WRC rounds but just 23 (less than half) of them have done so with only one navigator.
