Unless you’re reading this and your name is either Ott Tänak or Pierre-Louis Loubet, there’s one very obvious thing that separates Jourdan Serderidis from you and I.
The ability to drive a Ford Puma Rally1.
But strip that amazing privilege away and you, me and Jourdan are just the same.
We’re rally fans – and always will be.
It’s an element that perhaps gets forgotten about drivers in the World Rally Championship. The higher the stakes, the more serious it gets. But peel that all away and these drivers are simply rally fanatics like the rest of us.
Nobody makes that more obvious than Serderidis. Since learning about rallying from none other than Sébastien Loeb in a Swedish sauna 11 years ago (how cool is that, by the way?), Serderidis got involved and has travelled the world as far as Africa and North America to stimulate his new-found passion.
He isn’t there to win, he’s there simply to have fun. He’s there to live out our collective dream.
That gets lost too, I feel.
Let’s cut to the chase – Serderidis isn’t particularly fast. There are several drivers that could jump into that Rally1 car and produce better stage times and better overall results.
But that’s not Serderidis’ fault. And it shouldn’t matter to you or I. Tearing him down (like plenty have done) for it is completely unjustified and massively missing the point.
If you could, you would, wouldn’t you?
Serderidis turns 60 next year, so his reasons for stepping back from WRC competition are fairly self-explanatory. But, as much as the leaderboard in 2024 may not look too different without him, I happen to think his impending exit from the WRC is a massive blow.
As big a blow as any of the frontrunners Kalle Rovanperä, Ott Tänak or Thierry Neuville calling it quits.
While there’s no guarantee it would be a like-for-like trade in terms of quality, Rovanperä would be replaced at Toyota. A Tänak replacement would be sought at M-Sport Ford. And Hyundai would find somebody to fill Neuville’s seat.
But no more Serderidis likely means one less Rally1 car.
Serderidis is a bit of a lone wolf these days as a genuine privateer driver, funding his own drive without any manufacturer agreement or contract.
Lorenzo Bertelli makes fleeting appearances (two since Rally1 began in 2022) but Serderidis is the only one with a regular footprint in the WRC at the moment.
What the WRC therefore can ill afford is to lose its only privateer at a time when top-line entries are already ebbing. Assume M-Sport continues to run just two cars next season, and we could be left with just eight Rally1 cars on plenty of rounds in 2024.
Yes, Serderidis bumping that number up to nine doesn’t magically make this a non-issue. And, as already discussed, he’s unlikely to bring another element to the fight at the front.
There’s the off chance that the planned runs for Grégoire Munster at the end of this year turn into more for 2024, but that’s a very big if.
So at a time when the WRC is packed with quality but struggling for quantity, losing Serderidis cannot be seen as a positive.
But beyond the impact he will have on the entry numbers, there’s the unavoidable fact that Serderidis is just a brilliant guy that will be sorely missed around the service park.
I first had the opportunity to speak to Jourdan earlier this year when my DirtFish colleague David Evans asked me to call him ahead of his planned entry on the Malcolm Wilson Rally in the UK.
I’m super thankful to have his number in my phonebook, as I’m sure any time I fancied a chat about rallying Jourdan would only be too happy to engage. His passion for it was abundantly obvious within seconds of me even introducing myself, and we talked not just about upcoming rally but also about his plans for Munster which became another exclusive – plus a fair bit about things that can’t be repeated on these pages!
Sadly, my first face-to-face encounter was when he arrived back in the León service park on the Friday of last month’s Rally México following his early exit. But still, the trademark smile remained.
Find me a picture of Serderidis at a rally where he doesn’t look happy. There can’t be many, if any at all.
The WRC needs characters like Jourdan. And it needs drivers like him to compete in the top class alongside the main manufacturer teams.
Rallying hasn’t lost him – Serderidis will still be about at a national level – but the WRC will be a poorer, and less smiley, place without him next year.
