The World Rally Championship in the late 1990s and early 2000s was a fantastic period for the Brits. Of course, that style contrasted in almost every way with that of Colin McRae. For several years, only Richard could really take the fight to the locals eye to eye. You really could tell that on a rally like Finland, which is a super-high-speed event where precision is everything. His style simply wasn’t supersideways, but it was silky smooth and he often carried a lot more speed on corner exits than rivals. You only had to watch with a bit of understanding to really appreciate his artistry behind the wheel, because his rapid progress could be deceptive.

His career statistics for fastest stage times tell that story, too it’s not just a wistful old mate talking. Spending my life watching him through a lens, I can tell you with absolute certainty that Richard was bloody fast. Intelligent, fast, brave… This was a partnership that had it all.īut maybe that hard work meant he didn’t always get the credit he deserved for being fast. Of course they couldn’t, but Robert was able to describe the road with such precision and Richard had total faith in him – and the capacity to take in all that he was being told – in order to bang in the times. They were such a team, and there was no better demonstration of that than in fog, where they were unbeatable, regularly setting times as though they could see and their rivals were blindfolded. This level of detail was insanely hard to process, but they made it work brilliantly. He and his co-driver, Robert Reid, broke every corner down to three specific parts: entry, apex and exit. One example of this hard work was his unique split-page pace-note system. Only when he was happy would he switch over to The Simpsons, his favourite television show. But one thing Richard loved was a good party, and if he was in the mood, nothing could stop him, so I will do my best to honour that memory here with some stories that I hope both do him justice and are good enough that they would’ve made him squirm a bit. He died on 25 November, the same date on which four years earlier he had won his title, this cruel irony always there to cast a cloud over any happy memories of what he, his co-driver Robert Reid and the whole Subaru team achieved that day in Wales in 2001. As always, he put up a terrific fight, but even he couldn’t win this battle. It wasn’t to be, as Richard succumbed to a brain tumour aged just 34.

How I wish it had instead been returning a favour he did for me, giving the speech as his best man at what I know would have been the most amazing wedding to the love of his life, Zoe. I spoke at his memorial service – a parting gift, so to speak. Or just mate, because that’s exactly what I had the honour of calling him, from when I met him back in 1994, when he was a young up-and-coming rally driver, through to when he died in 2005, a world champion and so much more.

Crack for richard burns rally