Guillaume De Ridder

 

A successful karter in his early years – tallying the Belgian KF2 Championship title – Guillaume De Ridder graduated to car racing in 2013 in the domestic Ford Fiesta Sport Trophy rally series. Moving up to the Belgian Rally Championship’s Group N category in 2014, he won his class at the first time of asking behind the wheel of a Mitsubishi Lancer Evo IX. Two further seasons of rallying followed with a Peugeot 208 R2, before the Belgian diverted his attentions to rallycross in 2017.

Contesting the inaugural campaign of RX2e’s predecessor, the RX2 International Series, De Ridder was a front-runner from the outset. A hat-trick of podium finishes and third in the overall standings with JC Raceteknik in his rookie season set him up for a championship challenge with Olsbergs MSE the following year. After winning at Hell and Höljes, he took the duel for glory right the way down to the wire, ultimately winding up a close second. He simultaneously clinched the RallyX Nordic Supercar Lites class crown at the first time of asking.

In 2019, the Alpine F1 Team Power Unit Performance Engineer stepped up to Supercar level in the FIA World Rallycross Championship, twice reaching the semi-final stage in a campaign marred by unreliability and bad luck. He returned to action in the single-event RX2 showdown at Nysum in Denmark in 2020, dominating the opening leg of the double-header but going on to miss out on the coveted crown by a single point.