Another bright light is lost.
As written in the last post, this week’s entry was to serve as a return to, well, whatever strange form of storytelling this site was supposed to serve as! I decided to use the intended post to return to schedule next week instead. This week’s post must go in another direction.
The motorsport world lost an absolute gem of a person today. WRC driver Craig Breen has died in a pre-event test at Croatia Rally.
It seemed…disrespectful to write about anyone or anything else.
Readers of this blog will know, from the second ever posting here, that rallying holds a special place in my heart. This whole pursuit is named after one of the best rally drivers to ever do it; rally drivers are simply a different breed. The loss of life is always a great shame in any sporting endeavour, but it seemed especially painful this morning when I read the news of Breen’s passing. I read the same headline seemingly over and over again, and eventually almost fell ill when it sank in; it was gutting. I adored Craig Breen and so I wishfully continued hoping it was not true or that it had been misreported until I saw Hyundai’s statement confirming he was gone.
Deaths happen in racing – that is something readily accepted by drivers competing in motorsport’s various disciplines. Though when fatalities do not happen day to day, spectators seem to forget how dangerous racing is. Perhaps I, at times, also gave too much credit to the safety advancements of motorsport in previous posts made here. The fact remains that racing still poses great risk to competitors and spectators.
Rallying especially is still extremely dangerous. While the cars have developed immensely since the days of Group B for example, many aspects of rallying remain incredibly risky. Most of that risk is present as a result of rallying taking place in part on real world public roads rather than at purpose-built facilities.
Craig Breen started his career at age nine where most professional drivers do – a decade in karting. In his final year of karting he sampled a partial season of rallying and by nineteen he switched to rallying entirely, thereby following in the foot steps of his Irish Rally Champion father. He won all three championships he competed in that year, showing serious talent in just his first full season.
Breen continued to enjoy a very impressive and quick progression up the ranks after wrapping up those three championships. First he stepped up to the WRC Junior Championship and after claiming the title in 2011, moved up to the European Championship. Breen’s career progression at this stage is even more impressive when considering he dealt with tragedy, the loss of his co-driver Gareth Roberts.
During the eighth stage of the 2012 Targa Florio round of the Irish Rally Championship, the car piloted by Breen went off the road five miles in and struck a guardrail. The guardrail entered the car on the passenger side, and Gareth Roberts was lost as a result. After a year out, Breen returned to European rallying and somehow impressively finished in the top three for three consecutive seasons.
Breen’s efforts in the ERC were rewarded in the form of a Citroën factory drive in the World Rally Championship for 2016. I have always admired Green for making such a comeback. I cannot begin to imagine what goes through a rally driver’s mind when an accident claims the life of his co-driver. I do believe it would have taken deep soul-searching and a very strong will to continue pursuing his rally passions.
Breen went on to enjoy a long career in the World Rally Championship which spanned eighty-two stage starts with stops at Hyundai and M-Sport, claiming thirty stage wins and nine podiums along the way. This year he was running a third Hyundai i20 for a partial season. 2022 was his first full-time drive in the WRC and what was supposed to be a two-season stellar pairing with M-Sport ended prematurely. After such a forgettable 2021 he seemed elated to be back in a factory Hyundai.
Respectfully, Craig Breen was not the archetypal rally driver.
He was not the sort of driver often venerated by fans. That is, he did not enjoy the type of plenteous idolatry reserved for drivers collecting ample wins and championships over a dominating multi-season long run at the top.
Though, he certainly possessed much more potential than a cursory glance at his WRC career would suggest. Beyond being a supremely talented driver, he was incredibly personable and he was still revered by rally fans around the world for that.
Breen was well loved by all of us for very good reason – the sport clearly meant everything to him, and he was never afraid to show it. This was evidenced by the fact that throughout his career in the WRC, he never tried to hide his emotions, positive or negative. I have watched him cry many times after rallies, be it from overwhelming joy of a podium or from crushing disappointment when nothing was going correctly.
Breen held firmly on to his roots throughout his WRC career, maintaining a love of his national Irish rallying scene where he competed regularly and in various cars. He was one of the best personalities in rallying, and embodied a deep, deep love for the sport. His end of stage interviews always put a smile on my face. I often watched him showing raw emotions and thought to myself, “there’s a guy living his dream. No wonder that smile is so big!”
No greater example of this exists than his post stage interview from this season’s Rally Sweden. For those not terribly familiar with Craig Breen I will append this exchange below.
Just look in the man’s eyes. Those eyes tell one everything needed to know.
Personalities like Breen’s are truly what cement fans in rallying, a niche discipline still struggling to attract new followers, not necessarily the results or prowess which rally drivers put on display. Every driver in rallying has got that in spades. That is just the nature of a sport which requires competitors to be fast on all surfaces and in all conditions. Breen’s charming personality is what set him apart. The motorsport world has lost a bright light, a real treasure. There are many, many drivers who have come and gone in the top levels who seemed…insufferable. Disingenuous, arrogant, and finally…robotic, given how quickly people can turn on a figure thanks to social media. Craig Breen was none of those. He always struck me as someone with great humility, a humble person and direct communicator who was not afraid to show his emotions whether joyful or sorrowful.
We have all lost more than a racing driver today. We lost a good man, which is few and far between in motorsport in my experience thus far.
I will always fondly remember his demeanour en route to his most impressive performance, in Sweden this year after an abysmal 2022. After stage wins, flashing that killer smile with tears in his eyes, when he said “I’ve missed that feeling.”
I felt it. I am sure everyone watching did as well. You could always tell just how much rallying meant to him. His love for rallying was pure.
Enjoy Breen wheeling this Metro 6R4 Group B in the wet as well as his full onboard footage of setting the fastest time on SS5 of Rally Sweden – both clips really show the hustle he possessed. Therein lie an observable ferocity which Breen threw his cars around with.
I hope all who ever read this site’s postings chase their passion with ferocity and pure adoration – in just the same way Craig Breen chased his.