Mathieu Franceschi ends his career

Clearly, the climate isn't favorable for former French Gravel Rally Champions. After Laurent Pellier, the 2025 winner, who announced last Friday that he was stepping back from motorsport, it's now Mathieu Franceschi's turn to officially announce his retirement from motorsport at just 26 years old this Sunday evening. The driver from Fayence, in the Var region, took the opportunity to share a moving video on his social media accounts, retracing his career and his title as winner of the operation. Rally Young in 2017 at his last rally, the Rallye du Var, held last November. The announcement of his retirement is, so to speak, only a half-surprise since, on the podium at the finish of that same Rallye du Var, Franceschi had hinted that it could be his last competitive appearance. In 2025, he also won his home rally, the Rallye de Fayence, at the wheel of the AMD Motorsport Škoda Fabia RS Rally2, one of his only competitive appearances in 2025, adding to that a participation in the Sainte-Baume Rallye as a course car driver.

A piece of recent French rally history

Here too, one of the most impressive track records in French rallying is bowing out. French Gravel Rally Champion in 2022 after a two-wheel-drive title in 2020, the youngest of the Franceschi brothers had chosen to follow in his older brother Jean-Baptiste's footsteps by taking on the European Rally Championship in 2023. With three podium finishes in 2023 and 2024, he particularly distinguished himself during his second season in ERC by finishing as runner-up in the European Rally Championship, a season he concluded at the Rallye du Var by taking second place ahead of French Champion Léo Rossel. Last year, lacking financial solutions after a shortened WRC2 campaign, Franceschi "Junior" had to bide his time before returning at the end of the year. But the recent arrival of his son has disrupted his plans, and the young man will now dedicate his energy to his family. No doubt we should see him close to motorsport, however, particularly with the AMD Motorsport team of Emmanuel Aymonod, who has become the Franceschi family's main technical partner in recent years.