Colin McRae, who has died in a helicopter crash aged 39, began his rally career in 1986, made his WRC debut in 1987 and won the British Championship in a Subaru in 1991 & 92

The Scot won his first WRC race in New Zealand in 1993 and repeated the feat in 94 before going on to win his first Rally GB on his way to fourth in the points standings

McRae's third successive win in New Zealand kick-started a poor season and second places in Australia and Spain left him level with Carlos Sainz going into the final race - the GB Rally

And the 27-year-old kept his nerve to hold off a spirited challenge from Sainz to claim his only World Rally Championship in his Subaru Impreza 555

McRae finished a distant second to Tommi M�kinen in 1996, but 97 was closer - McRae won the last three races, but M�kinen's point in the final Rally GB meant he kept the title

Nicky Grist had taken over from Derek Ringer as co-driver in 1997, but the duo fell further back in 1998, finishing third overall despite three rally wins

McRae switched teams for the 1999 season and started strongly in his Ford Focus with wins in Kenya and Portugal but he ended the season a disappointing sixth

A fourth place finish in 2000 was followed by a second in 2001 when England's Richard Burns took the title by two points after McRae, who lead going into Rally GB, failed to finish

The 2002 season saw the last race wins for McRae - he took his fifth victory in Greece and followed it with a win in Kenya as he finished fourth in the drivers' standings

McRae signed with Citroen in 2003, but no race wins meant a seventh-place finish and when hopes of a second stint at Subaru evaporated, he was left without a drive in 2004

He put his time out of the WRC to good use in 2004, winning two stages on his debut in the Paris-Dakar Rally before gearbox trouble wrecked any chance of victory

McRae also drove in the Le Mans 24 hour race in a Ferrari 550-GTS Maranello with Darren Turner and Rickard Rydell - finishing ninth overall and third in their class

He made his return to the WRC in 2005 in a works Skoda Fabia WRC for the following season's Wales Rally GB and finished seventh in a one-off race for the season

In August of last year, McRae and co-driver Nicky Grist competed for Subaru in the first live televised American rally in Los Angeles and finished second despite rolling his car

And in October 2006, he competed in his final WRC race in Turkey when he replaced injured defending champion Sebastien Loeb in his Citroen - he finished outside the top 10

The 39-year-old will be remembered as one of rally's most popular exciting drivers