Juha Kankkunen by then lost the title to Mäkinen. Kankkunen stayed with Ford for the 1998 season with Belgian driver Bruno Thiry as his new teammate, after Sainz had opted to re-join Toyota. Ford was already moving resources into developing the new Ford Focus WRC and the team's last year with the Escort WRC was winless. Kankkunen drove the car on the podium on seven occasions, and both Ford and Kankkunen finished fourth in their respective championships. For the 1999 season, Ford signed the Subaru World Rally Team star Colin McRae and Kankkunen moved to replace him at Subaru. Kankkunen's first year
Colin McRae and the death of his passengers. Sheriff Nikola Stewart stated, after the 16-day inquiry, that McRae had been engaged in "unnecessary and unsafe" low-level flying at the time of the crash. Sheriff Stewart concluded that the accident might have been avoided if McRae had not flown into the Mouse Valley. For a private pilot such as McRae, without enough experience, low-level flying in that terrain was very imprudent. Codemasters released the first "Colin McRae Rally" video game in 1998. Version "2", known as "Colin McRae Rally 2.0", was released in the year 2000, for Sony's PlayStation and Microsoft Windows; it