Rally GB title showdown

To get to this point, it had been an up-and-down season. Makinen had got off to the best start, with wins in Monte Carlo and in Portugal. He also scored maximum points on the Safari, but the second half of the season had been a disaster - scoring just a single point in the five rallies after Kenya.

The newly launched Mitsubishi Lancer WRC had its teething problems and a massive crash in Corsica had put his co-driver Risto Mannisenmaki in hospital. For Rally GB Makinen was on his third co-driver of the season, Kaj Lindstrom. Not the best preparation for the rally, but Lindstrom was upbeat. "Tommi is just very, very fast," said the tall Finn before the rally started.

Ford's Carlos Sainz was consistent rather than spectacular throughout the year. He had scored points on nine events in 2001 - more than any other. But the Spaniard needed to win the rally and hope the three other contenders failed to finish.

The media spotlight though was on British duo Burns and McRae. The pair had dominated the event for the past seven years, with Burns having the upper hand in recent seasons. That, said his fellow drivers in an AUTOSPORT feature the week before the rally, would give him the edge. He had a terrible start to the year, but consistently high finishes and a win in New Zealand had put him just behind McRae for the season closer.

McRae's highlight of the year had been three wins on the trot in Argentina, Cyprus and Greece. But being a few minutes late at a meeting to choose road order after leg one in Rally Australia had ruined his chances of wrapping up the title down under.

It was a bad mistake, but in Wales the waiting was over. At the pre-event press conference, everyone seemed edgy. We had weeks of hype and build-up. The superspecial in Cardiff on Thursday night was advantage McRae. But the rally would get underway for real in the foggy stages of Wales the next day.

No easing oneself gently into the rally though. SS2, Gwynno. Makinen, cut a corner, and broke the front-left suspension putting him out. It was difficult to believe as we had spent so long thinking about it, and one of the leading drivers was out before the rally had really begun. And it was Makinen's last rally for Mitsubishi.

"I just feel very sad to be leaving Mitsubishi like this," he said.

Never mind. Burns, McRae and Sainz were still there. And was the Scotsman leading after the first few stages. Game on!

SS4, Rhondda. McRae got it wrong spectacularly.

About 14km into the stage he cut a corner. He was only about six inches or so from where he should have been, but it was enough to send his Ford Focus end over end five times at over 100mph. The in-car TV shot after the roll told its own story. McRae and co-driver Nicky Grist were silent as they realise their championship hopes were virtually over.

And there we have it. Just three stages into the first day of action and the show was all but finished. Sure Burns had a lot of work to do. He had to finish fourth or higher to win the championship, keep the concentration going and not make the mistakes his two closest rivals made. But in terms of a down-to-the-wire scrap, it was over. And we were left just a little shell-shocked. It wasn't supposed to be like this.

There was more drama on Saturday when Sainz's Focus crashes on SS12, injuring 13 spectators. Fortunately, they all made a recovery, but on the day Ford withdrew its remaining cars, leaving a weird atmosphere on an already weird event.

Leg Three, Sunday and Richard Burns duly kept it all together and came home third, just behind Peugeot pair Marcus Gronholm and Harri Rovanpera. Burns was a worthy champion. He proved that with consistently high finishes, especially in the second half of the season. But perhaps we'd been believing our own hype a little too much and while I was glad that Burns and my namesake Robert Reid were World Champions, there was a part that wanted to see the scrap in Wales just last that little bit longer...