After about eleven months, Guillaume de Mévius‘ time with Overdrive Racing has come to an abrupt end. On Tuesday, AUTOhebdo reported—with confirmation from Overdrive head Jean-Marc Fortin—that the Belgian left the team and will instead race a Mini John Cooper Works Rally Plus for X-raid Team starting with the Rallye du Maroc.
The news comes as a massive shock even to Fortin, who admitted he was “as surprised as I am disappointed.”
After racing primarily in the Challenger category, de Mévius graduated to the top level with Overdrive last October when he made his début at the Rallye du Maroc. Piloting a Toyota Hilux Overdrive, he finished twelfth in class.
He then committed to the 2024 World Rally-Raid Championship with the team, and impressed from the start when he finished runner-up at the Dakar Rally. The next two races were set back by a compressed vertebra from a hard landing at the Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge followed by mechanical issues at the BP Ultimate Rally-Raid.
De Mévius did not enter the Desafío Ruta 40, the latest and penultimate W2RC round, but he returned to action at the FIA World Baja Cup’s Baja España Aragón and won. Aragón also marked the first race for his new co-driver Mathieu Baumel, a five-time Dakar winner and twice World Rally-Raid Champion with Toyota.
However, de Mévius’ sudden departure throws a massive wrench into Overdrive’s plans. Fortin revealed a two-year contract extension had been in the works that would have kept him in the Hilux through 2026.
“The heads at Toyota were banking a lot on the promising young Belgian,” Fortin told AUTOhebdo. “With a co-driver of Mathieu Baumel’s calibre by his side, I was convinced Guillaume could win the Dakar in 2025 or 2026.
“A two-year contract was ready. All the terms had been discussed. He just had to sign. Unfortunately, he sent me a brief text message this Monday saying he had chosen Mini. Since then, I’ve tried calling him, but he hasn’t answered. Radio silence.”
X-raid fields Mini T1+ cars for multiple drivers in both the W2RC and FIA Baja Cups including Dakar winner Carlos Sainz, João Ferreira, Sebastián Halpern, Krzysztof Hołowczyc, and Pau Navarro, and Vaidotas Žala. The marque is currently third in the W2RC manufacturers’ standings behind Toyota and Prodrive.
De Mévius, who also oversees Overdrive’s OT3 Challenger car programme under his family’s GRallyTeam, has not publicly commented on the matter.
The Rallye du Maroc will be on 6–11 October. Despite skipping the DR 40, he remains sixth in the W2RC drivers’ points.
