Friday favourite: When a burly Skoda challenged the WRC’s big boys

Against opposition from Peugeot, Subaru, Ford and Mitsubishi, the Skoda Octavia was always going to struggle to get a look in during a golden era for the WRC at the turn of the millennium. But despite its underdog status, the car endeared itself to lead driver Armin Schwarz

It would be all too easy for Armin Schwarz to pick the Toyota Celica GT-Four as his favourite car. After all, from a career that graced the World Rally Championship podium with four different manufacturers, it was in the Group A weapon that he claimed his only WRC victory in Catalunya in 1991.

Yet the machine the German selects instead never won a WRC event. Finishing third on the Safari Rally in 2001 may have been the second-generation Skoda Octavia’s best WRC result, but Schwarz enjoyed rallying it more regardless.

Schwarz, who joined Hyundai for 2002 to develop its MSD-built Accent WRC, believes the underpowered Octavia was underrated. Certainly, as the 61-year-old acknowledges, “the Octavia never was highly rated a potential winning car from all the other teams and drivers”. But in 2001, despite a persistent lack of torque, it did muster a few giant-killing results and on occasion challenged for podiums.

“It was close in Monte Carlo, but it happened in Safari,” says Schwarz, whose co-driver throughout his time at Skoda, Manfred Hiemer, died aged 62 in 2023. “It also would have been possible in Greece [where Schwarz finished seventh despite a largely trouble-free event, power the main complaint]; the tough rallies, the car was really good.”

At Toyota, Schwarz had been cast in a supporting role to Carlos Sainz, its WRC champion in 1990. But when he joined Skoda in 1999 to drive the first iteration of the bulky Octavia, ending a hiatus that followed being abruptly dropped by Ford in 1997, Schwarz was the clear number one. Although it isn’t always reflected in the results, Schwarz reckons he reached a competitive peak from having regular seat time that he’d often lacked in stints with Toyota and Mitsubishi.

“I did all the development tests,” he says. “I was the first driver in the Octavia and so there was a lot of trust on my shoulder. It was for me a chance that I took in 2001 because I knew I can set-up the car like I need it and get all the support from the team.”

That counted for little initially as the car’s debut in Monte Carlo was an embarrassment due to problems with its engine management software. Schwarz suffered a clutch failure on his approach to the official start ramp in Casino Square, while team-mate Pavel Sibera didn’t make the start of the first stage proper either.

A distant fifth on the Acropolis in 2000, suffering from a fever, was Schwarz’s only points score, although there were signs of progress. Bruno Thiry had placed fourth on the 1999 Rally GB, while Schwarz delivered the Czech marque’s first-ever fastest stage time on Rally Catalunya in 2000.

“It was really bad weather,” recalls Schwarz. “And I think bad weather, always the cars showed their behaviour. It was giving you a lot of trust in difficult conditions.”

"If it would not dry up on the last two stages on Sunday in Monte Carlo, still today I'm pretty confident we would be on the podium, not Francois" Armin Schwarz

It was a different story when the Evo2 edition arrived, which coincided with “developments in all the respects of the team” run by Javel Paneba. Following a few toe-in-the-water outings in 2000, Schwarz went toe-to-toe with Monte Carlo specialist Francois Delecour in a Ford Focus for the final spot on the podium in 2001’s season opener, the eventual 20.7s gap belying how close it had been for much of the final leg. Autosport noted that the performance “has to go down as one of the bravest drives of the year”.

And following his Safari heroics, setting the fastest time on the opening stage to give Skoda the lead of a WRC event for the first time and its first-ever podium, fifth on Rally GB ensured Skoda finished level on points with Hyundai - but ahead on countback.

For Schwarz, one of the Octavia’s best traits was its handling resulting from its long wheelbase. “Compared to a Peugeot, a Citroen or a Subaru, it was a quite easy car to drive,” he observes.

This was especially important in the mixed conditions of the 2001 Monte. Schwarz believes on a fully dry rally, he would have faced an uphill task to reach the points, but his prospects were transformed when snow hit. Where rival manufacturers “have been very good on full snow, or full dry”, he recognised that the Octavia could work well in conditions where compromises were necessary.

“If it would not dry up on the last two stages on Sunday in Monte Carlo, still today I'm pretty confident we would be on the podium, not Francois,” he states.

Durability was its other key upside. Schwarz’s team-mate Thiry had cause to be especially grateful for this after the farcical events of Rally Argentina. A fire engine responding to a blaze started accidentally by a spectators’ barbeque overturned and crashed into the two parked Octavias in parc ferme, with Thiry still inside his car. Skoda director Jens Pohlmann was seriously injured, and both cars were withdrawn.

Third place on the Safari was the product of extensive testing, which Schwarz says reminded him of days with Toyota – the marque having long regarded Kenya as an important priority.

“You need to have a proper testing, a good development,” he explains. “Durability is the key for success in Kenya. So the strength what we had in 2001, the car was able maybe even to win.”

Schwarz says his ploy of pushing from the 117-kilometre first stage with a time of 55m05.0s was a deliberate strategy to put rivals under pressure. “Because nobody expects to be that fast in Safari,” he says. And it worked a treat, despite a puncture on stage three that dropped him to sixth at the end of the first day.

“That was the key to speed everybody up and more or less almost everybody ran into a big problem,” Schwarz remembers. “We didn't run into any big problem. We had a couple of smaller [problems], but we kept it very linear until the end.”