Mathieu Baumel joining forces with Guillaume de Mevius

Mathieu Baumel is going from working with one Fall Guy to the other. On Thursday, Guillaume de Mévius announced Baumel will be his navigator for the rest of the 2024 season and beyond, which will include the 2025 Dakar Rally barring any developments in the two months between then and now. Baumel replaces Xavier Panseri, who ran three of the first four World Rally-Raid Championship races by de Mévius’ side.

Their first race will be the FIA Baja World Cup’s Baja España Aragón on 26–28 July.

“Look who’ll be by my side for the rest of the season,” wrote de Mevius. “We are very happy to start a new adventure together. “A big thank you to @xavpanseri for this amazing year. This incredible second place @dakarrally will remain engraved in my memory.”

Baumel is perhaps the most decorated rally raid co-driver today with four Dakar Rallies and FIA Cross-Country Rally World Cups apiece and two World Rally-Raid Championships to his name, all as the navigator for Nasser Al-Attiyah. Despite being the twice reigning World Champion and Dakar victors, however, Baumel and Al-Attiyah parted ways after a disastrous 2024 Dakar, ending a ten-year relationship.

In April, Baumel linked up with Guerlain Chicherit for the BP Ultimate Rally-Raid when the latter’s usual navigator Alex Winocq was out due to injury, though their race ended with a crash. This provided for a reunion with Toyota, where Baumel had spent most of his time with Al-Attiyah before they departed for Prodrive ahead of the 2024 season.

Chicherit and de Mévius both drive Toyota Hiluxes from Overdrive Racing. While they have other colleagues at the team, the two’s efforts are closely linked and use similar liveries inspired by the 1980s television show The Fall Guy.

De Mévius is currently sixth in points entering the W2RC season-ending Rallye du Maroc on 6–11 October. He finished a career-best second at the Dakar Rally, leading all Toyotas in his second start with the manufacturer, before the Fall Guys suffered a double retirement at the Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge in which de Mévius suffered a compressed vertebra on a hard landing. He recovered in time for the BP Ultimate Rally-Raid but finished twentieth due to a rash of mechanical problems. Neither he nor Chicherit raced the Desafío Ruta 40 in June.