Winning the right way

David Richards CBE is in the final year of his third career – or fourth, if you include his failed attempt to become an accountant (his words, not mine). From co-driving in the World Rally Championship to team ownership through Prodrive and now, for a few more months at least, motorsport governance as chairman of Motorsport UK. If you know of a richer, more diverse, more successful career in motor racing, I would love to hear about it.

I think people forget it was David who called the notes alongside Ari Vatanen in the Rothmans-sponsored Mk2 Ford Escort when the pair won the World Rally Championship in 1981 – the last true privateers to do so. That’s an achievement us normal folk could only dream of, but in his case you can forget it’s there, like a star rendered invisible to the naked eye by the brightness of all those around it.

We interviewed David at the recent Sunday Scramble at Bicester Motion for a podcast that will go out on Monday. As ever he was affable, generous with his time and happy to indulge the motorsport romantic in all of us by telling those old stories about Subaru, Colin McRae, Richard Burns, co-driving for Vatanen and all the rest of it for the umpteenth time – as well as tales I’m sure you’ve never heard before.