One of the most decorated rally raid pairings has broken up as Nasser Al-Attiyah and Mathieu Baumel part ways after a decade together. Neither have announced their partners for the rest of the 2024 World Rally-Raid Championship, though reports have indicated Édouard Boulanger will become Al-Attiyah’s navigator starting with the upcoming Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge.
Al-Attiyah and Baumel began working together in 2015, quickly making waves when they won the Dakar Rally. From there, they added three more Dakars in 2019, 2022, and 2023, as well as back-to-back W2RC titles. The duo also won the W2RC’s predecessor FIA World Cup for Cross-Country Rallies four times from 2015 to 2017 and 2021, as well as the 2023 World Cup for Cross-Country Bajas (now World Bajas Cup). The lattermost made them the first to win both the rally raid and Bajas world titles in the same year.
Their successes also extended to traditional rallying, winning five Middle Eastern Rally Championships in 2015 and from 2019 to 2023 as well as the 2015 World Rally Championship-2.
However, the relationship fell apart during the 2024 W2RC season opener at the Dakar. Now racing for Prodrive after moving over from Toyota, they won a stage but were forced to retire halfway through the rally after suffering an engine failure, one of many mechanical issues that plagued their car. Two weeks after the Dakar, Giovanni Bernacchini replaced Baumel as Al-Attiyah’s rally navigator for the MERC’s Qatar International Rally, where Al-Attiyah’s bad start to 2024 continued as he received an early penalty before retiring on the final day.
Although a disappointing end, both gave an amicable joint statement on Monday thanking each other.
Boulanger currently works as the navigator for Stéphane Peterhansel of Audi. The duo won the 2021 Dakar Rally together as well as the 2022 Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge. They added a stage win at the 2024 Dakar but were set back by mechanical issues that relegated them to supporting Audi team-mate Carlos Sainz en route to his fourth Dakar victory.
While Boulanger publicly refuted initial reports of joining Al-Attiyah when they surfaced in late January, a source who recently spoke with him told The Checkered Flag that his comment was only the case at that time, indicating things have changed since.
Regardless of who is by his side, Al-Attiyah’s first race without Baumel will be the Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge on 25 February.
