Guerlain Chicherit

 

Guerlain Chicherit is a four-time World Free Skiing Champion-turned-rally, rallycross and stunt driver who famously performed the world’s first unassisted, 360-degree backflip in a car.

A professional skier, Chicherit clinched the World Championship crown in the discipline of free skiing in 1999, 2002, 2006 and 2007, while simultaneously making his motorsport debut in the French Rally Cup.

After triumphing in the Dakar Challenge in 2005, he tackled the gruelling Dakar Rally for the first time in 2006, piloting a BMW X3 to a stage win en route to a ninth-place overall finish. Further Dakar participations would follow, yielding a best result of fifth position in an X-Raid BMW in 2010, a year after clinching the FIA Cross Country Rally World Cup alongside co-driver Tina Thörner.

In 2013, Chicherit made history with his MINI backflip in the French Alps, but a year later, he failed in his attempt to break the world record for the longest car jump in Tignes, crashing spectacularly upon landing – albeit fortunately escaping with only relatively minor injuries.

The Frenchman joined the FIA World Rallycross Championship midway through 2015 at Lohéac, behind the wheel of a JRM Racing MINI, scoring his first points in Italy a month later. He continued to make sporadic appearances in 2016 and – having switched to a FORS Performance Renault Clio – 2017, while also testing his mettle in the supporting RX2 Series.

After establishing his own team – GC Kompetition (GCK) – Chicherit contested full seasons over the following two years in a Renault Mégane, reaching the final for the first time at Montalegre in 2018 and claiming his finest finish to-date with fourth place in Canada in 2019.

He entered six of the eight rounds in 2020 – running under the Unkorrupted banner – before returning to action in the 2021 finale at the Nürburgring, taking the chequered flag fifth in the last race of World RX’s combustion-powered era. He subsequently debuted GCK Motorsport’s eagerly-anticipated Lancia Delta Evo-e RX – the electric reincarnation of 1980s rallying legend, the Lancia Delta Integrale – at the same circuit the following year.

Chicherit’s GCK Energy company additionally won the FIA tender to power the FIA RX2e Championship grid in the all-electric series’ inaugural campaign, adding the World Championship to its green energy portfolio in 2022.