A perfect partnership

Pivotal to success in the WRC is the partnership between driver and the co-driver, who work as a team to bring the car home safely in the fastest time.

The Drivers

If the accelerator isn't flat to the floor, a driver's going too slow. If the brake isn't flat to the floor, he's going to crash. It's not easy sitting behind the wheel of a £400,000 World Rally Championship Car.

Just having a World Rally Championship Car will not make you a World Rally Championship driver. Nor will flat-out, foot to the floor driving win you any titles. A top-class World Rally Championship driver must be instinctive, brave, technically and tactically skilful (and a little bit mad). He must be passionate, precise, concentrated and have unflinching trust in his co-driver.

Oh yeah, he's got to be quick too.

The Co-drivers

The trust between driver and co-driver has to be absolute. Would you drive over a blind brow at 150kph in the fog, because your partner next to you said it was safe?

It's the co-driver's job to 'guide' the driver through the course. During the pre-rally recce, he (or she) writes extensive hand-written 'pace notes' on every corner, road surface, pothole, rock and potential hazard, so he can predict the speeds at which his driver can take the course the next day. He then reads them out to his driver as they hurtle through the stage.

The co-drivers are the unsung heroes of the World Rally Championship. More usually it is the driver that hits the headlines, while the co-driver is back at the service park going over his 'pace notes' for the next day's rallying. But he must be just as alert, committed and dedicated as his driver - without a good pace note reader, a driver is severely hindered.