The History of the World Rally Championship: 1990

Rallying finally gets its groove back.

True, it was only a two horse race, with Toyota and Lancia winning every round between them, something that had never happened before even in the Fiat-Ford and Audi-Peugeot years, but that was one horse more than we'd had for the last three years.

The cars has also got their pace back. Teams were a little coy about admitting their power outputs lest the authorities introduce even smaller turbo restrictors, but the Lancias were probably pushing 400bhp again and with improvements in tires and transmissions, the cars were probably as fast over the stages as the old Group B cars. My own rather subjective experience of standing behind trees and watching the cars flash past is that these years saw the fastest rallying ever.


The year began with the Lancia steamroller continuing as before, winning the Monte and taking the first five places in Portugal. Bjorn Waldegard then rained on their picnic by giving Toyota another Safari victory, becoming the oldest driver to win a WCR at 46.


On the shorter rallies though it was the youngsters who set the pace. Kankkunen had returned to Lancia, teaming up with Biasion and Auriel in a triple headed Lancia assault on the championship. Up against them was young Spanish hotshot Carlos Sainz. A natural athlete, he could have had a career in football had he not been lured away by the petrolheads.

Sainz lost an exciting duel with Auriel in Corsica. His adventures included narrowly avoiding a confused Corsican driving his road car up the stage the wrong way and having a bull run across the road in front of him.

In Greece though Sainz finally won his first world rally, narrowly beating Kankkunen. The rally also marked the debut of the Prodrive Subaru team, with former Lancia man Markku Alen putting the car into joint first place on the opening stage, so Lancia now had four Japanese teams snapping at their heels.

In the end Lancia's stellar driving talent gave them the Manufacturers Championship, with each of their three top drivers winning at least one event, and they wrapped up the championship in Sanremo. But Sainz was always there on the podium with them, and he was on the top spot in New Zealand and Finland, and it Italy he put the Drivers crown out of reach of the Lancia drivers.

It was a tremendous achievement for the driver and the team. At the start of the year the Celica had only finished one rally and at the start of June Sainz still hadn't won a world event.

With both championships already decided, the teams came to Britain for honour only. Never-the-less they put on a good show. Vatanen put the Galant ahead on the first stage, but Alen in the Legacy was once more the leader at the end of the 'Mickey Mouse' stages.


Once the real rally began Kankkunen put his Lancia ahead, whilst Sainz clung on to his tail. It was exciting stuff, and fast too. The previous year the cars had been on sheet ice so weren't performing at full potential. Now it was apparent that they were at least as quick as the old Group B machines. Indeed the times for one stage had to be canned after several drivers averaged over 70mph.


British fans also got to cheer on a local boy again. Colin McRae was in Ford's stately Sierra Sapphire Cosworth 4X4. Not for the last time the car was a little the worse for ware after rolling, but he set three fastest times on the way to sixth.

Eight stages from the end it looked like Sainz was again going to be runner up. But his luck had changed and on the next stage Kankkunen hit ice and left the road. It was bitter disappointment for the Finn, but a terrific end to the season for the Spaniard.

Rallying was exciting again, and everyone was looking forwards to the next season.