The 2001 World Rally Championship was the 29th season of the FIA World Rally Championship (WRC). In a tightly contested year, Subaru's Richard Burns took his first and only drivers' world title, beating Ford's Colin McRae, Mitsubishi's Tommi Mäkinen and the defending champion Marcus Grönholm of Peugeot. Peugeot successfully defended their manufacturers' title.

Calendar

The 2001 championship was contested over fourteen rounds in Europe, Africa, South America and Oceania.

Calendar changes

All 14 rounds from the previous season remained on the calendar for the 2001 season. April was left open with the belief at the time being that Britain would be moved to the spring in 2002, since there had been talks to relocate Rally GB to earlier in the year to make the event better for weather and tourism. The Safari rally was moved to the summer away from its traditional spring date, while Cyprus was also moved to the summer to be back to back with the Acropolis Rally. There had been plans to relocate Rally Australia from Perth to Melbourne with the event being based on the Rally of Melbourne that was part of the Australian Rally Championship at the time. However these plans failed to materialize and the Rally remained in Perth. During the season, Rally GB was under the threat of cancellation due to the outbreak of foot in mouth disease in the United Kingdom, leading to the Rally of Lebanon being prepared as a replacement. Rally GB was able to go ahead but with a more compact route which concentrated on more rural parts of the south of Wales and controversially removed popular stages such as Sweet Lamb and Myherin.

Teams and drivers

Non Manufacturer Entries

FIA Teams Cup

Super 1600 Championship entries

Results and standings

Rally results

Scoring system

Points were awarded to the top six classified finishers in each event.

Drivers' championship

Manufacturers' championship

FIA Teams Cup

JWRC Drivers' championship

Production World Rally Championship

Events