Red Bull Motorsports
With Wales Rally GB taking place this weekend, here's a list of the top motorsports heroes who did Wales proud.
Wales Rally GB this weekend is actually as Welsh as a male voice choir composed entirely of leeks. Here’s a list of the top eight Welsh motorsport heroes: in no particular order.
Phil Mills
To our knowledge at least, Phil Mills is the only Welsh WRC champion, having claimed the co-drivers' world title alongside Petter Solberg in 2003. He's also a four-time winner of his home event and is as Welsh as you could imagine anyone born in Trefeglwys to be. He retired in 2010 to concentrate on his historic rally preparation business, Viking Motorsport, but was coaxed back into the co-driver's seat one last time in 2014 to compete alongside Solberg in the Condroz Rally in Belgium.
Tom Pryce
To this day, Tom Pryce remains the only Welshman to have won a Formula One race (the non-championship 1977 Race of Champions). Unfortunately, he became more famous for the manner of his death than his life, when he sadly collided with a fire marshal during the 1977 South African Grand Prix.
Gywndaf Evans
'Gwyndaf the Bus' is a former British Rally champion who, as his nickname suggests, actually started out his career as a bus driver. He won the British title in 1996 and became a folk hero to the rallying fraternity. He also achieved great success on the world stage in Group N cars, but now devotes most of his time to running the family Ford dealership in Dolgellau and following the career of his son Elfyn Evans, a frontrunner at Wales Rally GB and worthy of an entry in the Welsh hall of fame in his own right.
Elfyn Evans
Elfyn came agonisingly close to winning his debut World Rally Championship event earlier this year in Argentina, and carved out an advantage on the early stages of Rally GB as well. He's been hailed as the best rally star to come out of Wales, and as we're learning from this distinguished list, that's quite some accolade.
Nicky Grist
As Colin McRae's partner in crime, Nicky Grist was the voice that graced a thousand PlayStations in Colin McRae Rally, dispensing confidence-inspiring pace notes such as 'slippy maybe'. Grist took 17 wins alongside McRae, making him one of Abergavenny's most famous sons. These days he's a motorsport consultant and importer of Stilo helmets, as well as Red Bull TV’s guest reporter this weekend at Wales Rally GB.
Dai Llewellin
Llewellin is a double British Rally champion who dominated the domestic scene in 1990 and led the RAC Rally that year as well. He got his big chance on the world stage with Nissan, but the Sunny GTi-R was no match for Llewellin's towering talent. Unfortunately, the pair disappeared soon after and the moustachioed hero is now a farmer and still lives in Wales, naturally.
David Richards
His velvety, urbane tones may suggest otherwise, but Prodrive supremo David Richards (also the 1981 world champion co-driver alongside Ari Vatanen) is a proud Welshman, hailing from Ruthin, right next door to the Clocaenog stage. That's how he grew up immersed in rallying and why Rally GB has a special place in his heart, despite a few abortive attempts to get Prodrive involved in Formula 1.
Hywel Lloyd
Hywel Lloyd didn't quite achieve the fame of his colleagues elsewhere on this page, but he does win the award for being the most Welsh-sounding driver ever to forge out a career in motorsport. Lloyd may not have progressed much beyond Formula 3, but on the numerous occasions that he raced abroad, there was no doubt where he came from – a proud ambassador for the land of our fathers.
