Nearly two decades after his last start in a World Rally Championship event, Didier Auriol will make his return at Rally Japan in November. He will race a Toyota GR Yaris that complies with the All Japan Rally Championship’s JN1 class regulations, but is not homologated by the FIA and he therefore will not be classified in the results.
Auriol won the 1994 World Rally Championship and twenty rallies in a career that spanned two decades. After breaking into the series with Lancia, he moved to Toyota for the 1993 season and quickly made waves. His Castrol-sponsored Toyota Celica was one of the most iconic vehicles of the decade, and with which he won seven times.
His most recent WRC start came at the 2005 Monte Carlo Rally as a privateer, where he retired.
Speaking to DirtFish, Auriol explained the entry came together thanks to Toyota Gazoo Racing‘s sponsor Fit Easy. Although Rally Japan was added to the calendar after he had retired from full-time racing, Fit Easy (a Japanese company) hoped to have the Frenchman race in front of the Japanese crowd.
“People in Japan have great memories of me driving with the Toyota Celica so the thinking was it would be nice to come here for the fans,” Auriol said to DirtFish. “I called my old co-driver and said it could be interesting to do this, to have some fun together. Maybe it’s the last one.”
Denis Giraudet, his navigator from 1994 to his retirement, will return as his partner. Giraudet, a five-time WRC rally winner, concluded his career in the championship in 2019 with Rhys Yates.
The Yaris is obviously a different beast from what the 66-year-old used to. For one, he told DirtFish, it is a right-hand drive car which he last raced in 1986 in an MG Metro 6R4 at the Tour de Corse. While not FIA-approved, the Yaris is a WRC2-level vehicle.
Scheduled for 21–24 November, Rally Japan is the final race of the 2024 World Rally Championship.