Colin McRae
Colin McRae won the 1995 World Rally Championship for Subaru — still Britain's only WRC title — with a famously aggressive, no-compromise driving style summed up by his own motto, "if in doubt, full throttle," and became a genuinely global name less through rallying's own TV coverage than through the bestselling video game series built around him.
Colin McRae rose through British rallying before joining Subaru's World Rally Championship team, winning the title in 1995 at just 27 — still, decades later, the only World Rally Championship title won by a British driver.
His driving style was built around outright commitment rather than caution, summed up by his own frequently repeated motto "if in doubt, full throttle" — an approach that produced both spectacular wins and spectacular crashes throughout his career with Subaru, Ford, and later Citroën.
McRae's fame outgrew the sport itself through the "Colin McRae Rally" video game series, one of the best-selling racing game franchises of its era, introducing rallying to millions of players who never watched the actual championship. He died in a helicopter accident in 2007 near his home in Lanarkshire, which he was piloting himself.
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McRae won the title for Subaru at just 27, a record for the championship's youngest winner that stood for well over a decade afterward, won with a driving style that prioritised outright speed over caution to a degree that made even teammates nervous.
The "Colin McRae Rally" video game series, launched in 1998, became one of the most commercially successful racing game franchises of its era, introducing an entire generation of players to rally driving who had never watched an actual WRC event — for many people under 30, his name is more associated with the game than the sport.
The phrase became so closely associated with McRae's driving philosophy that it was used as the title of his own autobiography — a fitting shorthand for a driver whose crashes were almost as celebrated by fans as his wins, for showing exactly how close to the limit he was always driving.
McRae's father Jimmy McRae was himself a successful rally driver, and Colin's son Hamish went on to pursue car racing as well, making rallying and motorsport a multi-generational pursuit across the McRae family.
McRae died in 2007 in a helicopter crash near his Lanarkshire home, which he was piloting himself; the accident also killed his young son and two family friends, a loss that was felt deeply across the entire rallying and wider motorsport community.