World Rally Championship
In 1990, Prodrive began a long standing and highly successful relationship with Subaru, forming the Subaru World Rally Team. Prodrive was tasked with running Subaru's rallying campaigns, helping them to three Drivers' and three Manufacturers' World Rally Championships (WRC). Starting out with the Subaru Legacy, they achieved minor success in the WRC with regular drivers Colin McRae and Ari Vatanen. The first Subaru victory in the WRC was by McRae in a Legacy during the 1993 Rally New Zealand. The smaller and more agile Impreza became the platform which Prodrive would be most successful within rally. Scotland’s Colin McRae won the 1995 World Rally Championship for drivers, followed later by England’s Richard Burns in 2001 and Norwegian Petter Solberg in 2003. All three championship Subarus were prepared and run by Prodrive.
The distinctive blue with yellow colour scheme was a throwback to the early 1990s sponsorship deal with 555, a BAT cigarette brand popular in Asia.
After a number of years of poor performances, Subaru announced their withdrawal from the WRC at the end of the 2008 season.
On 27 July 2010, it was announced that Prodrive would re-entry the WRC with a limited program in 2011 with BMW using the MINI Countryman. A full season in 2012 is planned with the car which will be powered by a 1.6-litre, four-cylinder turbo-charged engine from BMW Motorsport.
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