Born in 1979, Chris Atkinson is one of the younger drivers on the World Rally Championship circuit. He has been identified as one of the potential big names of the future and with just a short career thus far, at the big stage, there is still a lot of time for the man to show his true colours.

Being the son of a rallying competitor and enthusiast, it was natural that Chris got involved in the sport at a very early age. But despite the direct influence from his father, Chris was more involved in other sports like Soccer, Rugby and Tennis. The only place where he came close to racing was no two-wheels. He did participate in a few Motocross events in his early days. He went to study commerce on a University Scholarship and that is where the tide changed. Chris slowly, but steadily, became engrossed in rallying. He started off by co-driving for his brother but that would last for long. In 2001, he decided to switch seats and his performance and speed in the driver's seat, impressed one and all in 2001 and 2002. He produced some blistering performances in the Australian series in these two years and soon got the opportunity to join Suzuki.

His affair with silverware had already started and the tryst just continued. With Suzuki, Atkinson took the FIA Asia Pacific Super 1600 title, in 2003. Then he moved to the Group N series and behind the wheels of a Subaru, in 2004, he came second in the Australian Group N championships. In 2004, he also defended his Super 1600 title by repeating his feat. Besides the two events, he took part on several WRC events in Production Cars. He notched up a brilliant fifth place finish at Rally Australia and that certainly grabbed the attention of Subaru. The time was right for him to take up a seat in the Blue – Yellow car, and Subaru offered him a full season of WRC in 2005.

It took some time for Atkinson to completely get acclimatized to the diversity and toughness of the World Rally championships' stages. However, there were signs of his speed and even stage-topping times that kept the hope alive that there is still something left in this man to prove. He finished 10th in the 2006 drivers' standings while ending amongst the points in seven of the 16 events.
He almost made it to the podium in Rally Japan, in 2006, but it was rather harsh in the way he narrowly missed out on the podium place in that event. He even led his home rally from the front until an off-road incident led to retirement from the rally.

After 2006, Subaru noticed the Aussie's potential and offered him a contract extension till the end of 2008. As a support driver to former World Champion Petter Solberg, Atkinson has proved to be a solid and dependable driver and with a new car being launched for the Subaru team, there is always hope that the Aussie might rise to the occasion.