The votes have been counted and the results are in.
Last week, we asked you to submit your votes for the best event in the history of the World Rally Championship. Thousands of votes later, we’ve compiled the final ranking of your top 40 rallies to have ever graced a WRC calendar.
Over the course of this week we’ve revealed which rallies made positions 40 to six in your top 40, and now the time has finally come to unveil which event is your winner!
So without further ado, here are the top five events in WRC history, as voted by you:
5. Safari Kenya
The Safari is one of the most iconic events in rallying, and has earned its place in your top five.
Featuring on the WRC calendar 32 times including in the inaugural 1973 season, the rally was known in its original incarnation as the ultimate endurance test for drivers and cars.
With routes of over 3000 miles, all of which were competitive, across open Kenyan roads, encountering every type of terrain imaginable and even the local wildlife, the Safari was a rally on which caution blended with speed would win the day.
While the more typical special stage format was later adopted, the event would drop off the WRC calendar after 2002, and for many years it seemed that rallying’s last great adventure might be consigned to history.
But the Safari made a triumphant return to the series in 2021, albeit with a modernized format and a much shorter route on closed roads, and has remained on the calendar ever since.
Kenyan driver Shekhar Mehta holds the victory record with five Safari wins, while Sébastien Ogier won the most recent Safari win 2023.
4. Portugal
Fourth in your ranking is the Rally of Portugal, another WRC classic which has hosted the world championship 43 times.
Traditionally held in the rugged hills of northern Portugal, the rally was initially a mixed-surface event, but has long been an all-gravel affair famed for its demanding soft, sandy stages and passionate crowds – especially around the jump at the end of the famous Fafe stage.
Portugal is often cited as a driver favorite for those reasons, and the rally has produced numerous memorable battles over the years, including Richard Burns’ defeat of Marcus Grönholm by just 6.5 seconds in 2000, and Tommi Mäkinen’s unbelievable last stage performance to overhaul Carlos Sainz and win the 2001 edition by 8.6s.
Markku Alén and Sébastien Ogier have had the most Portuguese success, sharing the victory record with five each.
3. RAC/Rally GB
Rally GB holds a special place in the hearts of many WRC fans, and that’s reflected here as you’ve voted it as the third best rally of all time.
First held as a WRC round in 1973, and featuring on the calendar 46 times in total, the event was originally known as the Royal Automobile Club (RAC) Rally, and consisted of technical and treacherous forest stages across Wales, England and Scotland, with the typical British winter weather creating perhaps the rally’s most famous characteristic – mud.
Moving to only Welsh forest roads in 1997, the event typically hosted the WRC season finale, giving rise to iconic Rally GB title deciding moments such as Carlos Sainz’s final stage disaster to hand the title to Tommi Mäkinen in 1998, and Colin McRae’s ambitious cut, and subsequent roll, which cost him any chance of the 2001 crown.
While Scotsman McRae and Englishman Richard Burns gave the home crowd plenty to shout about over the years having both won the event three times, its French driver Sébastien Ogier who again holds the victory record with five Rally GB triumphs.
2. Monte Carlo
The oldest and most prestigious event of them all, the Monte Carlo Rally has made it to number two in your ranking.
First organized in 1911, at a time when rallying was a competition of automobile elegance and comfort rather than of speed and stage times, the Monte formed part of the WRC’s first calendar in 1973, and has hosted the championship 46 times in total.
Held as the traditional season opener in January, the event pitches drivers onto the icy mountain passes of the French Alps to the north of Monte Carlo, often encountering road conditions ranging from heavy snow and ice to dry Tarmac within just a single stage.
Winning the Monte has always been about intelligent driving, with making the right tire choices and the ability to drive a car with a far from perfect setup playing a crucial role in securing victory.
No drivers have displayed such intelligence on this event more than Frenchmen Sébastien Ogier and Sébastien Loeb, who share the WRC record for Monte victories with eight apiece.
1. Finland
Your pick for the best WRC event of all time is also its fastest rally: Finland.
The so-called ‘Grand Prix on Gravel’ sends cars flying over the blind crests and massive jumps of the Finnish Lake District’s smooth gravel roads – a location from which the event took its more traditional name: 1000 Lakes Rally.
Those roads are generally considered to be the best in the world for rallying, with the speed and commitment needed to master them meaning the event is arguably the greatest test of a rally driver’s skill on the planet.
Add to that the enormous support from the rally-mad Finnish fans, and it’s easy to understand why many drivers value a victory at Rally Finland above any other.
Finland has produced no-end of iconic moments in its WRC history, with Colin McRae’s endless crashes while continuing to push flat out in 1992, and Kris Meeke’s stunning drive to win the fastest world championship rally of all time in 2016 to name but two.
But of course it’s the Finns who have had the most success on this event, with the nation that’s produced more different world champions than any other also being responsible for the majority of Rally Finland victories. Marcus Grönholm has the most WRC wins in Finland with seven, just ahead of Markku Alén with six.
