Almost as traditional as Christmas shopping and Santa Claus, the Race of Champions is back, as in every December since 1988. Colin McRae will be once again be one of the eighteen stars of motorsport to participate in the RoC, which will take place next Saturday – 16th December in the Stade de France in Paris. Colin McRae, former winner and a regular competitor for many years now has a great affinity for the RoC “It’s a great end of season event”, he enthuses, “Like all fun events involving professional drivers it tends to become more competitive and serious as soon as the flag drops, but it’s great fun and it is nice to have the opportunity to meet drivers from different disciplines in a very relaxed atmosphere”.
The competition, created by former rally driver Michèle Mouton and her husband Fredrik Johnsson, features stars from many different motorsport disciplines, including, WRC, F.1, Endurance, Touring Cars and NASCAR, competing against each other at the wheel of similar cars, in a head to head knock-out format. Since 1999 the Nations’ Cup team event has run in conjunction with the Race of Champions. For this, Colin McRae will team up, for the third consecutive time, with Formula 1 driver David Coulthard to represent their home nation of Scotland.
This year, the track in the Stade de France has been lengthened to 1.2 km and widened to allow more thrilling action. “I look forward to the new track and hope it leads to more spectacular competition for the spectators”, says Colin, “It is true that it was a little bit too narrow and too slow over the last two years, but it is also obvious that racing in a stadium environment entails a number of constraints” The Citroën Xsara WRC, the Renault Mégane Trophy, the Porsche 911 GT3, the ROC buggy and the Aston Martin V8 Rally GT will be the cars available this year. The impressive entry list includes names such as Sébastian Loeb, Jenson Button, Andy Priaulx, Marcus Grönholm, Tom Kristensen, Sébastien Bourdais and Jimmy Johnson. Colin is happy to team up once more with friend and fellow Scot David Coulthard: “We are gaining in experience each year and we would hope to improve on our showing in 2005 when we were eliminated at the quarter-final stage”. As French fans would say: Allez l’Ecosse!
