10 years on: Richard Burns' finest hour

Ten years ago today, on November 25, 2001, Richard Burns made history by becoming the first Englishman to win the World Rally Championship. And the Subaru star won the title with Scotsman Robert Reid alongside.

Tragically, four years to the day after the pair stood on top of the world, Burns lost his fight against cancer, aged 34.

Reid takes us back to 2001 and, more specifically, Rally GB - the pair's crowning glory....

There's no doubt that 2001 was a good year for Richard and me. But, prior to Rally GB, it hadn't been a great one. And Rally GB was anything but a straightforward rally for us. But we got the right result.

The year started badly with a retirement in Monte Carlo when we were on our way back up the hill out of Nice and into Monaco. The engine just got worse and worse and then stopped. That kind of set the scene for us.

Burns (r) and Reid began their fightback with victory on Rally New Zealand © LAT

We went off in Sweden, but then came back and set loads of fastest times. We retired in Kenya... it went on and on.

But then we won Rally New Zealand. And that was a good win. Everybody was playing tactics at the end of the first day and, from memory, Richard and I dropped 40 seconds - which was a hell of a lot to give away - but we got the right place on the road for the second day.

And I think we'd made that time back in a couple of stages or something like that. I've still got the onboards from those Saturday stages and it's just incredible to see the pace we were running at.

Things were looking up in the second half of the season, but then we went off the road in Sanremo late in the year. That afternoon, we sat by the pool at the hotel and Richard said: "Well, that's that job screwed then."

Then we went to Australia and finished second to Marcus [Gronholm], meaning we went to Wales a point behind Tommi [Makinen] and two behind Colin [McRae].

There was real pressure at this point, as you could imagine.

Not only were we in the middle of the real Burns-McRae scrap, with all the interest that went with that, there were also some legal letters flying around concerning our future and whether we would be at Subaru or Peugeot for the following season.

It wasn't a nice build-up to the event. I'd shouted at our PR guy because he'd talked to somebody about the contractual obligations we had and Richard was refusing to do any interviews at shakedown. It just wasn't nice.

Richard and I had decided to stay in another hotel, away from the team. The team hotel was a big place that had lots of weddings and things like that going on, but we went to a quiet place, some sort of country house.

Map torch or not, Burns/Reid were quick on home turf © LAT

The event itself was not a straightforward rally for us, not by any means.

A mark of how a rally is going comes from the number of times you sit in the car to go to a time control. If everything is okay, you don't have to get out of the car to go to the control, but, if there's a bit of stress, you would get out and walk [to the control].

I didn't go to a single control in the car during that event.

McRae had made a pretty quick start to the event on the first morning, with a fastest time - but we'd closed the gap on the third stage of the event. Then Colin went off in Rhondda.

I remember vaguely seeing the car as we went past it. But, while Colin had been quick, Marcus was quicker than both of us on the stage before, so it wasn't like Colin had been mega or anything like that.

Certainly, there was no panic in the car about the pace Colin was running at before the shunt.

Richard didn't say a word when we passed Colin. But I think it was the next junction where Richard braked a little bit late and we spun. That was a quick reminder for us to stay focused.

One of the most stressful moments came when we went to go into the night stages at the end of the first day. Christian [Loriaux, then technical director at Subaru] wouldn't allow us to have a map light in the car to save weight.

McRae's crash made things a little clearer in the title battle © LAT

So, on our way back into service before the final loop, I'd reminded the engineer to fit the map light, so I could read the pace notes. He told me it would be done.

We came out of service and, as we went out into the road, I reached up to switch it on.

"Fuck!" I shouted, "it's not there..."

The team had forgotten to fit it. We were now faced with doing Brechfa and Trawscoed, two horribly slippery stages, without any chance of me being able to read the notes.

This could have cost us the title. Don't forget we still had to finish fourth on the event.

Fortunately, I'd kept a small torch in my co-driver's bag. I tied that torch to my thumb and got on with it.

If we hadn't had that torch, who knows what would have happened, but it's likely we would have lost a lot of time.

That wasn't the only post-service trouble we had, either. I can't remember where this happened, but when went to get back in the car after service, I discovered the slave battery in the footwell.

We always kept the slave in the car to make sure there was an external power source for the car while it was in service, but it wasn't supposed to be coming to the stages with us.

We had to get rid of it somehow, but how? Once we were away and out of service, we got into the lanes a little bit and Richard pulled over. He said: "Chuck it over the wall."

Burns powered on through the final day's stages © LAT

I got out, just in time for another car to come past. RB offered more good advice, adding: "Pretend you're having a piss!"

Once that car had gone, I hoyed the battery and we got on with it.

When we got to the start of the final stage, we were still going through the motions and everything was just the same as a normal rally.

The final stretch of that last stage was one of the most difficult on the whole event. It was the Margam Park stage, which involved a really tricky downhill section just before you go out into the park itself.

We crashed there the following year, in a nasty left-hander with a tree on the outside.

I remember getting to that part of the stage and just willing it to end. When you come out into the park, there's a tendency to think: "Ah, that's it, we can relax..." But there's still a couple of kilometres to go.

We got those done and crossed the line.

Richard got out and I remember him kissing the bonnet of the car, but I sat inside for a while. I was welling up a little bit.

Then got out, but suddenly I was aware of the time and knew we had to leave to get to Cardiff.

Driving that road section back to Cardiff was great. There was just contented silence. That was the great thing about Richard and me - in the car we would sometimes chat away like a pair of old women, and then sometimes we would just sit in silence. Both were equally okay.

Back in Cardiff, the title was celebrated in time-honoured tradition © LAT

This was a mark of the professional respect and the friendship we had.

But, on that day, you could almost hear the smiles. Occasionally one of us would giggle and start the pair of us, saying: "Fuck, it's unbelievable isn't it... world champions."

We went for dinner in a limo; Clare [Caudwell, Richard's PA] had arranged that, somewhere in Cardiff, and then we just went to the party.

We had a good party, but the next morning, with a couple of stinking hangovers, we had to get up quite early for some promotional shots of us and the car at Marble Arch in London.

Once we'd done that, we drove back to Wales and tested the Peugeot 206 WRC for the first time...

Last month the Richard Burns Foundation released a video to commemorate the 10th anniversary of his world title success, and to highlight his fight against brain cancer. Click here to watch it.