Uncovering Colin McRae's Škoda Disaster - What Really Happened?

We sat down with Nicky Grist to discuss his career and his time as Colin McRae's co-driver... including the tragic Rally Australia drive of 2005, where Colin and Skoda parted ways.
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[@mach4_]

I love this guy, such a legend 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 I could sit down for hours and just listen his histories

[@pauloag1977]

Always love listening to Nicky about his and Colin's days (RIP Champ) and agree it would not have mattered if Colin and Nicky did not win a championship. Both of their talent and skills would've cemented their names in rallying and beyond.

[@starsailorer]

They didn’t win a championship! Colin won his with Derek Ringer.

[@martynsamsom8237]

I used to compete against Nicky in the 70’s when he was a keen member of Abergavenny Motor Club. He was always destined to be a world leader in the sport. Congratulations Nicky, a true ambassador of rallying.

[@claroibre4778]

Yea no maybe, but man couldn’t pedal a 106 Maxi like a ledge ❤

[@tomlepski8306]

Nicky Grist, Luis Moya, Arne Hertz, Hans Thorszelius, IIkka Kivimaki,Derek Ringer, Fabrizia Pons,Juha Piironen, Risto Manisenmaki,Sergio Cresto,Terry Harryman, Jim Porter, Paul White, Yvonne Mehta, Jean Todt, Christian Geisdorfer....a line up of the best navigators in WRC rallying. The unsung heroes who will never be forgotten and forever mentioned under the same breath of their more famous partners.

[@bionysos41]

Very good👍🇫🇮 Ilkka Kivimäki (2 k) and Juha Piironen (2 i) but otherwise your Finnish is perfect☺️

[@AidanMillward]

Robert Reid narrating Richard Burns’s stages is my childhood.

[@tomlepski8306]

@@bionysos41 Nairobi, where I live is 8,234 Kms from Helsinki as the crow flies I believe, so I'm not sure I will ever get a opportunity to learn and post fluent Finnish, buddy :)

[@ssc00p]

@@tomlepski8306 When I do post something containing names... I make sure, out of just respect, with a simple and fast google search... that the names are somewhat correctly spelled... there´s absolutely no need to learn the language. But you do you... no real harm done to anyone...

[@dantheracer99]

Phil Mills would be an honourable mention too.

[@harry_italya]

Huge fan of Nicky. Was lucky enough to meet him at Wales Rally GB in 2014, quite literally the voice of my childhood and such a nice guy. Proper meet your heroes moment.

[@Airman_Fu]

This man got me into WRC with Speed Channel, the 555 Subaru and also the WRC PS1 game. 25 years later I watched my first WRC race live and I met my wife at the event.

[@hecklepig]

Absolutely loved the Colin McRae rally game it was fantastic. I remember buying it for myself one christmas and actually waiting until christmas day to play it. Needless to say I didn't see the rest of the family for the majority of the day as they were all celebrating and eating Christmas dinner. It was always best with headphones one and turned up to get every one of the pace notes just right. The real tragedy of Colin and Nicky's career was when Richards messed with the WRC rules about limiting teams to hire experienced drivers and screwed innumerable other drivers careers.

[@tyree9055]

Nicky, your trophy might be tiny, but your courage and dedication are not! 🥳🎉

[@troyglossop1113]

amazing conversation. thanks for sharing!

[@forzowatches]

Glad you enjoyed it! - Mario

[@michaelkenny4124]

What a wonderful interview, enjoyed every second of it

[@iansmith1937]

I love Colin McRae he is the ultimate but he was only the ultimate because you were with him Nicky!!! You both had a symbiotic relationship 🥰 you belonged together!!

[@gaelenski_]

No love for Derek Ringer?

[@sugarnads]

He wasnt close to the greatest.

[@iansmith1937]

@@sugarnads did I say he was the greatest!!! Now you've brought it up I'll say he's in the top 3 with himself, Roger Clarke and Ari Vatenen!!

[@sugarnads]

@@iansmith1937 ultimate. Same not same same. Lets see... I love ari. But. Rohrl. Kankunnen. Mikkola. I will take my 3 against yours ANY day ANY car ANY stage. Hell. I think his DAD was a better driver. And in a subaru? If Possum Bourne had the the same spec car and the wrc works team support i think he might have won 3 world titles. Possum was other worldly in a RS liberty and amazing in an impreza. Certainly would have been cat among the pigeons time. Then you got tommi makkinen and marcus gronholm...both blew him away with boring regularity as did carlos sainz. Less said about toyotas interesting throttle body the better...

[@iansmith1937]

@@sugarnads titles and wins aside is irrelevant 🤔 as for the comment on Jimmy McRae being better than Colin!! Different era's but I'd put my money on Colin!!!

[@YBM2007]

Great stuff! I remember following Skoda Motorsport back in the day, so this exact rally comes to mind quite often as you might expect. No disrespect to Armin who was essentially "Mr Skoda" at the time, but Colin clearly should have gotten the priority there

[@AlejjSi]

Armin was a piece of shit back then, quite uselles and arrogant. When he was at Skoda until 2001, his contract was not renewed for 2002 because then the team director Pavel Janeba concluded that he had nothing more to offer in his abilities to the team. And when he returned to the team again after the toen director changed, it was proven correct. They drove away Didier Auriol, who liked the car, went to the Skoda because of the Fabia and was a great test driver, and instead they reinstated Schwarz. Skoda also has some Czech drivers including Kopecký under contract for the Czech international champinship and his crew always delivered stories of whings having to be done Schwarz's way even if he was not involved. The most ironic story was when they were testing before a Czech major event and the car was undriveable, the Kopecký sr., who was quite a fierce and uncompromising character, forced the mechanics to set the car up the way his son wanted and suddenly, everything inluding times on the test track improved massively. Then the chief mechanic came and said "See, Armin's setup does the trick" to which he was replied "Excelt that it isn't his setup at all, we changed it our way". Then it was some long faces in the team "leaders' " faces.

[@JanHejn]

As a Czech person I hated Schwartz - in my opinion he was the biggest mistake Škoda Motorsport had made he killed the WRC project and "demoted" us to dominating the WRC2

[@YBM2007]

@@JanHejn His 4th and 3rd place in 2001 with the Octavia was impressive, they also got the Octavia reliable on a tiny budget (as compared to Hyundai or even big spenders Mitsubishi). What killed the Skoda Motorsport WRC program was the Fabia, when McRae came in and showed its potential it was too late

[@YBM2007]

@@AlejjSi The 2001 season was Skoda Motorsports most successful much thanks to Schwarz, Eriksson was signed for 2002 - not Auriol which was 2003

[@AlejjSi]

I know. What I was saying was that for 2004 ther replaced Auriol with Schwarz again. Yes, Schwarz helped a lot in 1999-2001, but as Janeba then said, he helped them more with running the rallies and organisation stuff more than developing the car, so when he felt they learned how to swin in the WRC pool, they had no more use of him, so they went foe Eriksson instead. Eriksson could have easily equal Schwarz's result from Safari, had his driveshaft failed 200 meters later. Having Schwarz in the team in 2005 was pure stupidness. He wasn't even concentrating on driving the car, he also worked for RTL in their broadcast during the rallies instead working with the mechanics and he was also heading the Red Bull Junior team. And he was miles off the pace of his teammates. Also his teammates reported that he was behaving rudely towards them and they were also saying they were unable to set their car up as they wanted. Paasonen, who did a great job at Rally Finland in 2004 was suddenly nowhere (mind you Schwarz finished this rally 5 places and 7 minutes behind Paasonen and 5,5 minutes behind Gardemeister in the other Fabia). And when he got to run the renmants of Skoda Motorsport in 2006 as his own Red Bull team, he made a mess of everything there too. He had drivers like Panizzi, young Ekström and they, even though they showed great pace in the Fabia, said that with this kind of unprofessionalism, they don't want to drive for that team again... @@YBM2007​

[@pauladams2907]

Fascinating to listen to him, such a great guy. I was a massive fan of Colin’s and then naturally Nicky. 👍

[@phil7301]

Nick, you're a legend 👍🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿

[@claroibre4778]

Man is Welsh! 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 take that back!

[@hughjass8430]

Stumbled across this interview and loved it. Like many, it was the 1998 PlayStation game that got me into rally, motorsports and cars in general. Nicky's voice brought me right back to those simple, happy days as a lad. RIP Colin 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

[@ze5258]

Brilliant interview, loved it!

[@guillermojaviergoncalves6131]

What a great interview, I personally never heard Nicky before...now I need more of he´s stories...so well spoken, so gentleman and truthful to. I´m glad I got to see these video. Greetings from an argentinian fan.

[@garysimpson8860]

I could listen to him all day , all the sto they can tell is mesmerising, good work 👍

[@AlanBrookland]

Awesome interview, thanks for posting

[@mallarally145]

Love the Golden Q trophy🏆🌅 Nicky attention too detail is Godly!! 100 percent present in reality🕊️💖⚡🌠

[@claroibre4778]

NetworkQ

[@philiprush5754]

Shat an absolute gentle man met him once he's the same out of the car as when he's in it I remember Collins funeral and too watch Nicky broke our hearts

[@claroibre4778]

Shat? 💩🚽

[@ascgazz7347]

Great interview 🎉

[@sweed58]

What a great interview

[@iainf]

There's more to this in that the Skoda team was up for sale & Schwartz who was trying to buy it didn't want the real potential of the car to be shown hence this clutch change to put it over time. The other suggestion is the car was underweight.

[@skylineXpert]

I Imagine being colins co-driver costs a lot of shorts... that kind of driving Is nutts. Had a blast with CMR04 and 05 and dirt 2 (even If colin never saw the first truly).

[@Tracertme]

I am pleased he recognised the accountability of management, it’s their job to plan so teams are set up for success not left to firefight situations that didn’t need to occur. ❤😊

[@brucecurtis6281]

Nicky’s description of timing the pace notes kinda reminds me of a good dance caller at a ceilidh, calling just before you need to change partners, swing, or hurtle down the row swinging everyone on the way! If the caller gets it wrong; mayhem!. David Niven describes such a mess, I think in his book, The moon’s a balloon.’ No flames, but carnage of sorts.

[@jaredramos6223]

The voice of my childhood

[@PeronuPeric-wm9hx]

First Colin on PSX, what a memories.

[@ptcarino]

co-drivers should get the same amount of attention as drivers. a driver would not be able to get through a stage without their co-driver. trophies alone should be the same for both.

[@OPEK.]

i was just telling my coworker yesterday about the 06 flip mid race, still the coolest thing thats ever happened in an xgames

[@firebald2915]

Who's idea was it to put the "elephant in the room" on the table between them ? Faux pas ?

[@juliobrian4757]

Why did I know exactly what he said in the Pacenotes?

[@CobraAce04]

He taught all of us pacenotes. So many young rally drivers now understand left 1 is sharp and left 6 is fast, and that's because of him. So many other valid pacenotes languages have been relegated behind 1-6 including easy left- hard right or even 6-1 system.

[@muhammadshofwan5309]

I also used to legitly thought Colin Mcrea was a fictional name. Until i followinv WRC in 2006 and saw his name

[@williamrae9954]

Used to go to the motocross with Colin when he was a kid...McRae...son of Rae,I'm a Rae.

[@AnthonyChristian-px4nj]

It was done on purpose Skoda wanted to pull out ,Colin winning wouldn't have let them do that . They thought Colin was a spent force , how wrong was they.

[@SticksAandstonesBozo]

Omg. When he didn’t pacenotes …. I almost shit. Wow. He’s the guy.

[@johnmackay5784]

What a nice chap

[@street-level]

Ford Focus , Rally GB, 2001, last day, Rhonda stage. Why ???

[@robertpatrick3350]

Nicky should have the last laugh I’m sure far more people remember him than Network Q.

[@Mo_frika]

This is why Colin was never championship material. It's also why we have forgotten both Sebs but still remember him, Vatanen etc. Maybe Kalle will get close but Colin will always be THE ONE.

[@charlessale409]

Who has forgotten the Sebs? Come on..

[@reav3rtm]

​​​@@charlessale409 Yeah it's a stretch at best. Loeb and Ogier are already legends. And they are alive. If anything McRae will be remembered as the one whose nonchalant show-off low-altitude flying killed him and his son (not mentioning two other people). Kalle has already surpassed McRae in virtually everything. Just doesn't have Finnish video game company to make him more famous.

[@RallyeRacin9]

8:56

[@rossaodonovan895]

What a gent

[@benconway9010]

I mean with how brilliant Colin McRae was I just still don’t understand why he never won anymore championships? I mean just why??

[@Gordanovich02]

One could make a lengthy video about everything that went wrong, but in short: -Driver error a couple of times; most notably when he was comfortably leading the 2001 RAC Rally, only to bin it and hand the title to Richard Burns. -Mechanical failures quite a lot; the early Subaru WRC was a bit fragile, same thing happened with the Ford Focus, I especially recall the sequential gearshift failed several times. -As the post-y2k cars got more technical, with trick differentials, better tyres and suspension and so on, Colin's balls-to-the-wall sideways driving style just wasn't as conducive to good results; a more conservative, almost circuit-racer technique was needed.

[@JimmyBlandfood]

Silly questions.

[@mikechannell727]

Is no-one going to mention the elephant in the room?

[@graemestewart7752]

Its sad he makes it all about the cars and co-driver. That's dishonest. It was about the drivers.

[@TufteMotorsport]

Oh really? Then why did Pegeout stop winning after introducing the 307 and the 4 speed gearbox?

[@graemestewart7752]

@@TufteMotorsport I don't know what you're talking about Peugeot 4 speed gearboxes. Mostly the better driver is the winning factor. Think Mikkola, Rohl, Kankanen, Vatinen. They were the difference.

[@funkywonky94]

It's also about the cars too. I remember hearing Gronholm on TV saying he was fed up with the 307. Too many gearbox related issues

[@FLYINGSHEEPRALLY]

Typical Nicky getting his left and rights mixed up 19:54. Is this the reason so many he sat with really crashed?

[@n.ayieko1645]

Poor trolling. One of the most accomplished co-drivers of all time, now long retired, but other than Colin, the illustrious list of his past driver partnerships speaks for itself. What will YOU be known for after retirement, apart from the obvious?

[@FLYINGSHEEPRALLY]

@@n.ayieko1645 Tell me how many WRC Co-Driving championships has he won throughout his accomplished career? It was merely a 'tongue In cheek' remark I made. As for my retirement I will be hopefully be remembered for my World Championship Class wins in Road Rallying and my illustrious charitable work such as making sure donkeys are fed and receive fresh water at Christmas time every year!

[@cossie60]

​@@FLYINGSHEEPRALLYhe won 1 rally championship with Juha kankkunen In 1993. The same amount of championships as Derek Ringer,

[@FLYINGSHEEPRALLY]

@@cossie60 In 1993 Daniel Grataloup won the co-drivers world rally championship he sat with François Delecour. Kankkunen won the drivers championship but had to make a substitute with Grist during the season after co-driver Juha Piironen suffered a brain hemorrhage.Your right that Derek Ringer did win the championship once in 1995 something that was unattainable for Nicky.

[@_d_m_towing7930]

Nicky , I do have friend , Škoda motorsport mechanic that time and he was in Australia with your crew , he told me that was all prepared for few reasons ... apparently, Armin want to get the team cheap from Škoda motorsport etc and VW concern as a Škoda owner , even motorsport was at Škoda independent kind or "factory " was preparing own VW motorsport rally team and they didn't want to Škoda success at that rally ... so that's why management was playing dirty games ...😢😢😢