Which driver won the WRC title in 2001?

Richard Burns won the 2001 World Rally Championship drivers’ title. The Englishman secured the championship after finishing third in the season-ending Rally Great Britain, becoming the first English driver to win the WRC drivers’ crown.

Burns had previously finished runner-up in 1999 and 2000, and the 2001 title fight went down to the final round. His main rivals included Colin McRae, Tommi Mäkinen, and Carlos Sainz, but all three lost their mathematical chance during the event. Burns’s Subaru Impreza WRC provided the consistency needed for him to finish the season first.

His title was especially significant for British rallying, which had produced many successful competitors but no English WRC drivers’ champion before Burns. He later moved to Peugeot for 2002, but a serious brain tumour prevented him from competing fully. Burns died in 2005, aged 34, and remains remembered as one of Britain’s finest rally drivers.