After Hyundai, Christian Loriaux joins Overdrive Racing

Christian Loriaux (58 years old) will add a new box to his CV. After having made his debut at Subaru Prodrive (in the heyday of McRae) and then having brought revolutionary innovations to M Sport on the Ford Focus WRC and "created" the Bentley GT3 in circuit endurance racing and, finally, made the Hyundai i20 Hybrid in close collaboration with François-Xavier Demaison, here he is turning towards the rally-raid. Now it's with a shirt Toyota Gazoo Racing that the 'guru' (a name registered by English journalists) will be walking around. Not in the service parks of the WRC events but in the bivouacs of the rally-raids.

“I am delighted to welcome Christian to our organization”, explained Jean-Marc Fortin, the boss of Overdrive Racing, from Bisha (Saudi Arabia) where he arrived on Monday. A choice recruit that also signifies a change in status for this team which, in its Belgian premises, was until now content to receive and assemble Toyota Hiluxes from South Africa.
From now on, it is in Villers-le-Bouillet, where Overdrive is headquartered, that Toyota's future weapon in rally-raid will be developed.

Incidentally, it should be remembered that Fortin and Loriaux have known each other for ages. When Jean-Marc was François' co-pilot Duval on the Focus WRC at the start of the 2003 season, Christian was the technical director at M Sport. And in 2021, Fortin had hired Loriaux as a consultant on the Dakar. From now on, the two men will work closely together.

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