26 August 2026 / By David Ferguson
Some drivers arrive at rallying by accident, but Owen Paterson never really had a chance of avoiding it.
His dad Stuart rallied, his uncles rallied and his grandfather rallied before any of them. By the time Owen, his rallying sister Alice and cousins were old enough to know what a pace note was, the family business had already chosen them.
The 20-year-old is Dumfries born and bred, though after the recent Grampian Rally he has been busy packing up and moving east to St Boswells in the heart of the Scottish Borders, and closer to his partner Sarah Hunter’s home turf.
Sarah, many will know, shares his passion for rallying. A hairdresser by trade, she’s a competitive driver in her own right, with Owen her former co-driver. While Owen was at the Grampian, talking through his season with us, she was across the Irish Sea finishing fourth in class at the Ulster Rally.
From class win on tarmack to gravel’s baptism of fire
This year was not meant to be a rally championship winning season for Owen. He enjoyed navigating for Sarah on Irish tarmack and was simply planning to take his Subaru Impreza GC8 out for experience and find out what Scottish Rally Championship events felt like for the first time. But, now, he is leading the British National B Cup from Alfie Hammond, who has played his joker, with his Welsh co-driver Catrin Price also topping the co-driver standings.
“Yeah, that wasn’t quite what we expected,” he said, with more than a hint of under-statement. “I always wanted to do the Jim Clark Rally, so we signed up for that just to see how it went, and we won the class, so we were like ‘yep, that was good’.”
He finished 34th overall and so headed to the Voly Grampian Rally at the start of this month and won the class again, this time 30th overall in an even more competitive field as contenders came from far and wide to get a feel for the Banchory forests ahead of next year’s WRC arrival.
What was even more impressive was that Owen had never driven on gravel. He’d co-driven on loose surfaces before, riding shotgun for Jock Armstrong and marvelling at how effortless the man made it look, but in a quick blast round Jock’s quarry, it was a different story entirely.
“I couldn’t get on with it at all,” he explained. “I was ready to pull my entry for the Grampian to be honest, but we decided to go for it and that first night in the Grampian was just magnificent. It felt like a baptism of fire, and nothing like I expected it to be – you’re just dancing with the car all the time.”
The gulf between the two surfaces, he reckons, comes down to the brakes. On tarmac it’s binary – full grip, all the time, hard on and hard off. Try that on gravel and you’re in the scenery at the first corner.
“That’s what’s exciting about the different rallies. On the gravel it’s a case of feathering the brake while keeping the throttle open to rotate the car through the turn, which is easier said than done, whereas you have much more grip on the tar.
“I hear guys say they much prefer the gravel but I’m definitely not in that category yet. I’m still coming into a lot of corners and it’s like ‘oh s***, what way are we gonna go here?’” There’s a lot more sixth gear stuff on gravel than on tar, and it seems that we were actually faster on gravel than on tar, which makes no sense to me. But I’m really enjoying it.”
Learning the ropes on and off the road
Owen’s competitive story started in 2019 in the junior ranks with Calum MacPherson alongside in a Peugeot 107, where he finished third on his very first outing, at Kames, then crashed at Anglesey – “I was just too hot-headed on the Sunday morning and went off!”
Into 2020 with Callum Shanks as co-driver he finished third again in the Mach 1 Junior Stages at Machrihanish, before the Covid pandemic wiped out the rest of that year. He had some run-outs as a co-driver when rallying returned but it wasn’t until 2023 that he got back behind the wheel in competition.
Still just 17, the family bought the Subaru he still drives today – the same model his dad runs, right down to the sequential gearbox now sitting in Owen’s car.
“They’re a pain in the arse to get right,” says Owen, “but when they are right they’re phenomenal and you really can’t go wrong with them in the rally.
“It’s a beautifully handling car – probably older than me but it works a treat. We’ll keep it this year, but maybe open up my eyes to something different next year depending on what budget and sponsors we can pull together.”
Owen showed his potential as a teenager on the Scottish tarmack circuit, winning the Kingdom Stages, only for a series of issues to force several retirals in 2025. He shifted to Pirelli tyres this year and that has helped improve consistency.
He was eighth in class at Knockhill on his first outing, then had the Jim Clark excitement of finishing top Subaru, before claiming third overall and second Scottish Tarmack position at Crail and then first National again in the Grampian.
There is no doubt he still has much to learn, but the Grampian was only his fourth rally on notes and by his own reckoning, he’s “not done many big boy rallies” yet. However, results suggest this latest rallying Paterson is picking it up very quickly.
Curiously, his dad Stuart, positioned flat on his back underneath the car as we speak, “checking the prop shaft, possibly”, has sat alongside Owen exactly once, on a test day when Owen was 14, but never again.
“He’s not the best passenger,” says Owen, with a wide smile. “I can hardly take him to the petrol station without him cringing!”
Back to plant mechanic … but a title beckons
Away from the stages, Owen trained as a plant mechanic before moving into vehicle recovery and he is in the process of setting up his own plant mechanic business in St Boswells, and working self-employed while the pieces fall into place.
The autumn months of the season now have on a much more exciting look than was the case in spring. The JDS Machinery Rally Ceredigion is next up, on 4-6 September, with the Cambrian to follow in October and he may try to slot in a run at Mull in between if the budget allows.
“It’s exciting, definitely,” he added, “but who knows what we can do?
“I am very thankful for all the sponsors that have supported me to this point, but I’m learning quickly that money doesn’t go far in this sport. If you want to make a million pounds from rallying, you need to start with ten million.
“But I’m enjoying it while I can and obviously now the focus is on the British National Championship, so I can’t wait for the Ceredigion. There is a long way to go and lots to learn, but I’m loving it.”
Given how the summer’s Scottish tests on tarmack and gravel have gone, the same challenges in Wales now appear full of promise.
