Three Hundred Metres From Glory: Sainz, Auriol, and the Toyota Corolla WRC

Two of the biggest names in 1990s rallying, one factory team, one genuinely brilliant car — and one of the cruellest finishes the World Rally Championship has ever produced. The story behind the Castrol-liveried Toyota Corolla WRC is worth knowing before it goes back on your shelf.

Building a super-team

By 1998, Toyota Team Europe needed a statement. Its Corolla WRC — essentially the underpinnings of the older Celica squeezed into a compact European body — had debuted the previous year and shown real promise, but the team wanted to put beyond doubt that it could fight for both championships. Toyota's answer was to sign two of the biggest names in the sport: reigning-era stars Carlos Sainz, already a two-time World Rally Champion, and Didier Auriol, champion himself in 1994. Pairing them together in factory Corollas, backed by Castrol, was as close to a rallying dream team as the era produced.

It worked immediately. Sainz took the Corolla WRC's first-ever victory at the 1998 Monte Carlo Rally, partnered as always by co-driver Luis Moya. Auriol backed it up with a win of his own in Spain. Through the middle of the season the two factory Corollas were genuinely the cars to beat, trading places with Tommi Mäkinen's Mitsubishi and Colin McRae's Subaru at the front of the field.

The run to the RAC

By the time the series reached the final round — the RAC Rally in Great Britain — the maths had lined up perfectly for Toyota. The team led the manufacturers' championship by four points, and Sainz sat just two points behind Mäkinen in the drivers' standings, with the rest of the field well out of reach. All Sainz needed to do was finish fourth or better and the title was his.

It briefly looked like Toyota might sweep both championships outright. Subaru's cars fell away one by one — first Ari Vatanen, then Colin McRae himself retired — while Auriol held station near the front to help secure the manufacturers' title. Sainz, meanwhile, simply had to bring his Corolla home.

He nearly didn't get the chance to try. On the final stage, running comfortably inside the position he needed, Sainz's Corolla suffered a catastrophic engine failure roughly 300 metres from the finish line. The car that had carried him to the brink of a third world title died within sight of the flag. Mäkinen, who had been prone to retirements of his own that year, took the drivers' championship instead — despite Sainz having been the more consistent of the two all season.

It remains one of the most talked-about finishes in WRC history: a title lost not on pace, not on a mistake, but by a few hundred metres of bad luck.

The following year

Toyota regrouped for 1999, and while the drivers' title eluded them again, the manufacturers' crown didn't. Auriol closed out the campaign with victory at that year's China Rally — a dominant final-leg performance, fastest across five of six stages — with Sainz and Moya rounding out the podium in third. It was enough to hand Toyota the 1999 manufacturers' championship, a fitting send-off: shortly afterward, Toyota Team Europe wound down its rally programme entirely to redirect its focus toward Formula One.

Both drivers moved on afterward — Auriol to SEAT, Sainz to Ford — but the Corolla WRC's short, spectacular run with two world champions at the wheel remains one of the most star-studded line-ups the WRC has ever fielded, and the RAC heartbreak one of its most quoted "what if" moments.

This piece accompanies our Ninco 1:32 Toyota Corolla WRC "Castrol" models — Ref. 50165 (Carlos Sainz/Luis Moya, #5) and Ref. 50166 (Didier Auriol/Denis Giraudet, #9) — both available now.