An Interview with Hollie McRae
It’s mid-June during a British heatwave. Hollie McRae is sitting in Starbucks while her car gets serviced. The next day, she’s off to Donegal. Then Mallorca. Then Rome. Hollie has thrown herself into rally and does the family name proud. After ditching primary school teaching, her first full year at the helm of McRae Media has delivered, and then some. 30 years on from her dad’s world championship, I sat down with Hollie to see what’s on the horizon for the new generation of McRae.
Hollie: I’m home [Lanark] for two days now, but I'll be away for a month and a half. Last year, I took everything one event at a time. A lot of my experiences were firsts, and it went by like a fever dream. This year, I’m thinking more long-term, and if there’s a gap in my calendar, I panic. I need to remind myself that this time last year, I had nothing planned, so I’m on the right track.
Lewis: Meeting you in Wales last year versus seeing you now, the growth has been unreal. Has it been as you expected?
H: It was something that I never really tried to make happen. It all just fell into place one after the other. I’m comparing myself to what I was doing last year. It’s good to take a step back, look at it from the outside perspective. So far, things are on the right track. It’s easy to forget to give yourself a pat on the back every now and then.
L: Guilty as charged. How do you manage your time between McRae Media and working for clients? It’s a hard balance; I often forget about my own stuff in favour of more client work.
H: Right now, things are busy, but steady, and it’s allowed me to do more stuff for myself versus last year. In 2024, practically every bit of work I had was for clients, and McRae Media was just side content, almost like an afterthought. Two of my first clients were Hayden Paddon and my cousin [Max McRae], who’ve now moved on to teams with their own in-house social media teams.
L: You can say you were a fundamental part of Hayden’s ERC title. Not bad for your first year.
H: Exactly! But that’s two jobs I no longer have, so where’s the money going to come from? In a way, it freed me up to do more of my own stuff, get more exposure and have control over what I produce.
L: It opens the doors, doesn’t it? Tell me about your European Rally Championship (ERC) experiences so far this year.
H: I’ve done two ERC events, working for WRC Promoter itself, in Poland and Hungary. Before those, I went to the opening round in Sierra Morena on my own. It felt like a perfect opportunity to get a handle on things and show my face, and it was the first time I’d attended an event specifically with McRae Media in mind. No other clients or agenda. It was nice to build my own plan.
L: When there’s no set plan for work, how do you approach things? Do you go in with a list of people to chat to or take it as it comes? I remember asking Elfyn Evans the most bullshit questions because I didn’t prepare anything.
H: I’ll chat to drivers and teams all weekend, but there’s never a plan to score work from it. They see me busy creating for McRae Media, so in a way, the content speaks for itself.
L: Tell me about a day in the life of Hollie McRae.
H: Every day is different, which I love. A couple of years ago, when I was teaching, I hated how repetitive it was and how you’d wake up and know exactly what your day was going to hold. I’m not ready for such a predictable life just yet. When I’m in Scotland, it’s a lot of ‘life admin’, like the dentist, taking the car to the garage and stuff. Plenty of editing and scheduling, too.
L: And your podcast, DRIVE?
H: I’ve put that on pause for now. It was taking up a lot of time, but I do plan for it to come back.
L: You’ve got a nice little studio as well, which is a cool backdrop. How’s the Colin McRae Collection project going? That’s where you host the podcast, isn’t it?
H: It’s 95% there, it’s usable. We’ve shared the space with friends and family, but we’re still thinking about opening it up to the public.
L: This was a long-term plan of your family, wasn’t it?
H: It came about just by chance. My mum and my grandpa have had discussions with countless different museums and collectors about creating a space to honour my dad and his career. And because of that, we've sifted through boxes and boxes of Dad's trophies, memorabilia and different sorts of things and created The Colin McRae Collection, in what was my dad's old office building, so it feels right that it's now being used in this way.
L: It’s the 30th anniversary of your dad’s title this year, isn’t it? Do you have anything planned?
H: I’m in talks with loads of people about how they want to celebrate it. The main one for us is the McRae Rally Challenge in September at Knock Hill. We first did that ten years ago for the 20th anniversary. The 25th anniversary was cancelled in 2020 for you-know-why and ran a couple of years later. But this will be the first time I’ve been properly involved in things. I’m going to co-drive for my Grandpa for the first time ever.
L: That is AMAZING.
H: I said to him that he needs to teach me what to do. I said, ‘Jimmy, we’re not just leaving it until the last minute. I want to do a good job.’
L: The McRae Challenge is good for Scottish rallying, no doubt.
Hollie competed in her first-ever rally on 22 November 2025, 30 years to the day of her dad’s WRC title. Her co-driver, none other than partner and fellow SLICKS contributor, Jon Armstrong.
H: It started as an open-entry event, and then we shifted to invite-only for the second running. Guests come along, like my dad’s peers and notable people in Scottish motorsport. It also doubles as a round of the Junior 1000s, something my Grandpa pushed from the start. It gives young kids the chance to compete alongside big names in the sport. Plus, there are loads of female drivers too.
L: Talk to me about your teaching career. A lot of people might not know that you started your adult life as a primary school teacher, right?
H: Right. Rally’s always been in the background for me. But after losing my dad and Johnny [Hollie’s brother] in the accident, my mum found it very difficult to be part of the motorsport scene because she was just hoping that my dad would be there amongst all of his mates. And because of that, my mum and I took a step back from rallying when I was eight until about age 18. We didn't watch rally at home. We didn't keep up with it, and I think because of that, I just never imagined that I would ever have a career in motorsport. I grew up for the remainder of my childhood and my teenage years putting my time and effort into my hobbies and the things that I enjoyed that didn't have anything to do with motorsport.
L: And so you pursued your own path.
H: Exactly. I went to university. I studied Education and became a primary school teacher in Glasgow, which was great. There are so many elements of the job I absolutely love, but I qualified and then started teaching just as COVID-19 started. So it was a very intense first couple of years of the job, and it wasn't really what I'd imagined my teaching career to look like. I worked with people who were counting down the days until the weekend or the next school holiday. And I was just sitting there at 22 years old thinking, ‘This is not how I want to live the next 40 years of my life’. So, after COVID, restrictions eased up a little, I took what I thought was going to be a year out from teaching to go and travel the world, and it’s just never ended.
L: Would you say your cousin, Max, is a big reason McRae Media exists today?
H: During my year out, I came home for a little bit, and Max had moved into my mum's house to start his junior European campaign. My mum suggested to Max: ‘Why don't you get Hollie along to do some social media stuff for you?’ because I'd worked in social media on and off throughout university. It was something exciting to do because Max and I hadn't spent a lot of time together growing up. I grew up in Scotland and he grew up in Australia, so it was a nice way to get to know each other and for me to still travel and meet other people within rallying. I joined him on four of his European rounds in 2023 and slowly got involved in rally again.
L: Talk me through 2025 so far. Where’ve you been and where are you planning to go for work?
H: Goodness me. Okay, so the first rally of the year was the East Riding Stages BRC round in February. Then I was in Spain for round one of the ERC in April. Then it was Carlisle BRC, Hungary ERC, Jim Clark, Rally Barbados, Poland ERC, and I’ve just got back from Rally Donegal. So, eight rallies up to now. Not bad, eh?
L: I mean, that’s more than one a month. I don’t know how you do it.
H: Good job I love being busy, isn’t it?!
L: Do you get some breaks in between, or is it pretty full on?
H: The ERC and BRC kind of leapfrog each other, so there are occasional days at home (like today) before another.
L: Tell me a bit more about Barbados.
H: Funnily enough, that came up at very short notice, starting last year. I got a message from Becs Williams out of nowhere asking if I was free between certain dates. I checked my calendar and it was the weekend of WRC Rally Sardegna. Becs couldn’t be in two places at once, Barbados and Italy, so she asked if I’d like to go to Barbados on her behalf. Quite an easy decision, eh?
L: I’d say so. Let’s look at what the rest of the year holds for you.
H: We’ve got three more BRC rounds where I’m working with the TV crew. At the ERC in Croatia, I’ll be doing stage-end interviews. I’m also going to Rome in July, and the McRae Rally Challenge is in September. Oh, and Goodwood! We’re taking L555 BAT too. The whole family will be there.
L: And you have a clothing line collaboration! Tell me a bit about how that came about.
H: KJ (the founder) and I have been speaking for a while. I’ve been wearing his brand (Accènts) for a while at rallies that didn’t require a uniform. I thought it would be a good opportunity to become a bit more recognisable and promote McRae Media. We started off with a t-shirt, then a hoodie and now a quarter zip fleece. It was never meant to be purchasable merch, but people were keen to own a piece for themselves.
L: Sweet. I won’t keep you any longer. Go and pick up your car from the garage. Thanks, Hollie.
H: Catch up soon, mate.
