The team’s home event, Wales Rally GB is only a few hours drive south of the Subaru World Rally Team’s headquarters in Banbury, UK. It is also the home event of Welshman Phil Mills, run on his doorstep.

History shows it is the most successful event for the Subaru World Rally Team, which has tasted victory a total of nine times over the years. It has also been the scene of a series of milestones for the team.

1994
Colin McRae and Derek Ringer’s victory on the 1994 Network Q RAC Rally was the third for the Impreza since its WRC debut at the end of 1993. McRae and Ringer claimed 16 stage wins, whilst Carlos Sainz and Luis Moya won five tests before retiring with an accident.

1995
McRae and Ringer won again in 1995, a year which proved to be theirs. It was their second win of the season, and brought them the World Championship title, making McRae the youngest driver to hold the honour.

Sainz and Moya finished second and Richard Burns and Robert Reid came home third, making for SWRT’s second 1,2,3 finish in as many rallies, the first coming in Catalunya a month earlier. The SWRT trio scored a total of 23 stage wins in GB, a team record from a single rally.

1997
After Rally GB was not included in the 1996 calendar, McRae won for a third time upon its return in 1997, this time sitting alongside Nicky Grist. The victory sealed SWRT’s third Manufacturers’ Championship in as many years.

1999
Burns and Reid won in GB in 1999, their first full season with SWRT. It was their third victory of the year, and ended their season in style with a double after honours in Australia earlier in the month. Juha Repo and Juha Kankkunen finished second to record the third 1,2 finish for SWRT that year.

2000
Burns and Reid repeated their success in GB for a second time in 2000. Petter Solberg and Phil Mills competed in their first Rally GB with the Subaru World Rally Team, having joined the team three rallies prior in Corsice. They won two stages of the event whilst Burns and Reid won a further five.

2002
Solberg and Mills took victory on only their third attempt at the Network Q Rally of Great Britain aboard a Subaru Impreza. With a total of eight stage wins, it was their first World Rally win with SWRT.

2003
Solberg and Mills again claimed victory in 2003 with a convincing 13 stage wins. It was their fourth win of the season, the 38th win for the Impreza WRC, and it clinched the Norwegian and the Welshman their first World Championship title. Kaj Lindstrom and Tommi Makinen made it two Subarus on the podium when they finished third.

2004
Solberg and Mills completed their hat-trick with another victory, their third on Welsh soil in as many years. As a short-lived change to the calendar, Wales Rally GB was run in the middle of September rather than as the traditional season finale to which it reverted for the 2006 season onwards.

2005
The 2005 Wales Rally GB was a black event. Solberg and Mills won, but in tragic circumstances with the death of Michael Park when he and driver Markko Martin crashed terribly on the final day of competition.

The event was cut short, and leader Sebastien Loeb deliberately incurred a two minute time penalty to demote himself to third as he didn’t want to clinch the championship, as a win would have seen him do, on such a dark day.

The 2008 Wales Rally GB will be the first time Petter Solberg / Phil Mills and Chris Atkinson / Stéphane Prévot will tackle the forests of mid- and south Wales aboard the new Impreza WRC2008, launched earlier this year on the Acropolis Rally.