M-Sport privateer Jourdan Serderidis will call time on his World Rally Championship career after this year’s Acropolis Rally Greece.
Serderidis has driven a Ford Puma Rally1 on six WRC events since the new hybrid Rally1 regulations were introduced, with a best finish of seventh overall on last year’s Safari Rally Kenya.
The 59-year-old has already started two events this season – Monte Carlo and México – but has plans to do three more in Sardinia, Kenya again and finally his home event in Greece.
That will bring the curtain down on a WRC career that’s spanned almost 10 years and yielded a championship in the form of the WRC Trophy, for drivers in previous-generation WRC machinery, in 2017.
He’s driven a variety of cars from the Citroën DS3 WRC he won that title in to the last generation Ford Fiesta WRC and several R5/Rally2 machines.
Explaining his decision to retire from the WRC, Serderidis told DirtFish: “That’s what I am doing in my life, to improve my own personal performance, so it doesn’t change for a rally or for a business.
“OK, the most important [thing] is the pleasure, the fun. I still have it, but OK at one moment we have to think about stopping as well.”
Serderidis won’t stop competing though, with plans to contest national rallies in his two native countries Greece and Belgium – most likely in a Rally2 car.
He drove a Volkswagen Polo to seventh on last weekend’s Rallye des Ardennes, and drove a Škoda Fabia regularly for the past few seasons.
There are plans for M-Sport’s WRC2 driver Grégoire Munster to drive Serderidis’ vacant Puma Rally1 towards the end of the season, provided he performs well in a Fiesta Rally2.
Rally Chile, Central European Rally and Rally Japan all follow the Acropolis on the 2023 calendar.
