Michel Périn (born 19 January 1957, in

Saint-Mihiel Saint-Mihiel () is a commune in the Meuse department in the Grand Est region in Northeastern France. Geography Saint-Mihiel lies on the banks of the river Meuse. History A Benedictine abbey was established here in 708 or 709 by Count Wulfoalde ...

) is a French rally navigator.

Biography

He started racing in 1977. In 1984 he turned professional as co-pilot of

François Chatriot François () is a French masculine given name and surname, equivalent to the English name Francis. People with the given name * François Amoudruz (1926–2020), French resistance fighter * François-Marie Arouet (better known as Voltaire; ...

, and finished second in the French Rally Championship, championship that he would win in 1988, 1989 and 1990. He changed to

off-road Off-roading is the act of driving or riding in a vehicle on unpaved surfaces such as sand, dirt, gravel, riverbeds, mud, snow, rocks, or other natural terrain. Off-roading ranges from casual drives with regular vehicles to competitive events w ...

rally racing in 1992, to the side of Pierre Lartigue, winning the

Dakar Rally The Dakar Rally () or simply "The Dakar" (), formerly known as the Paris–Dakar Rally (), is an annual rally raid organised by the Amaury Sport Organisation (ASO). It is an off-road endurance event traversing terrain much tougher than convent ...

1994 The year 1994 was designated as the " International Year of the Family" and the "International Year of Sport and the Olympic Ideal" by the United Nations. In the Line Islands and Phoenix Islands of Kiribati, 1994 had only 364 days, omitti ...

1995 1995 was designated as: * United Nations Year for Tolerance * World Year of Peoples' Commemoration of the Victims of the Second World War This was the first year that the Internet was entirely privatized, with the United States government ...

and

1996 1996 was designated as: * International Year for the Eradication of Poverty Events January * January 8 – A Zairean cargo plane crashes into a crowded market in the center of the capital city of the Democratic Republic of the Congo ...

. He also achieved multiple victories and podium finishes in many of the most important offroad races, including Rally of Tunisia, Atlas Rally, Baja Italy, Spanish Baja and Baja Portugal. From 1993 to 1996, he won the FIA Cross Country World Cup. In 1997 and 1998 he switched again to rally, participating in the French Rally Championship with the driver Patrick Magaud. He ended his career at the end of 1998, turning into team manager of Citroën Sport. Six years later, he returned in 2004, sharing cockpit with Guerlain Chicherit. In 2005, he signed for the

Volkswagen Motorsport The Volkswagen R Motorsport was a works rally team of the Germany, German car manufacturer Volkswagen, who competed in the World Rally Championship (WRC) and Dakar Rally. The team started competing in WRC in 1978 World Rally Championship season ...

Team. Being Bruno Saby's codriver, he won the FIA Cross Country World Cup for 5th time in his career, including victories on Rally of Morocco and Rallye d'Orient, and a fifth place in the

. In 2007, riding with Carlos Sainz, he won again the Cross Country World Cup, after winning the Rally Transibérico and finishing second in the Rally of Morocco and the UAE Desert Challenge. They were 9th in the final classification of the

, after suffering a breakdown. After the 2007 killing of French tourists in Mauritania, the Dakar Rally effectively moved to Central Europe for 2008, which the pair won. In the

2009 Dakar Rally The 2009 Dakar Rally was the 31st running of the Dakar Rally. The race began on 3 January 2009, and took place across Argentina and Chile. The rally was for the first time to take place outside of Europe and Africa as the location was changed by ...

, after leading the classification for several days, he and Sainz suffered an accident because of the lack of documentation in the roadbook. Périn broke his arm, and the team was forced to abandon the race. In 2009, he was contracted by

BMW Bayerische Motoren Werke AG, trading as BMW Group (commonly abbreviated to BMW (), sometimes anglicised as Bavarian Motor Works), is a German multinational manufacturer of vehicles and motorcycles headquartered in Munich, Bavaria, Germany. Th ...

as co-driver of

Nani Roma Joan "Nani" Roma Cararach (born 17 February 1972) is a rally racing driver from Folgueroles, Barcelona, Spain. He won the Dakar Rally riding a motorcycle in 2004. Since then, he has entered the car category, taking the win in the 2014 edition ...

in a

BMW X3 The BMW X3 is an SUV manufactured by BMW since 2003, based on the BMW 3 Series platform. BMW markets the car as a ''Sports Activity Vehicle'', the company's proprietary descriptor for its X-line luxury vehicles. The first-generation X3 was des ...

, winning the Baja Spain that year. In the

2010 Dakar Rally The 2010 Dakar Rally was the 32nd running of the event. It was held in South America for the second successive time, and ran from 1 to 16 January. The Amaury Sport Organisation and the governments of Government of Argentina, Argentina and Politic ...

, they accomplished a great start, winning the first stage, but after two accidents, they had to abandon in third stage. In 2015, Périn became co-driver of Finn rally raid driver

Mikko Hirvonen Mikko Hirvonen (born 31 July 1980) is a Finnish former rally driver, and a current Rally-Raid driver, who drove in the World Rally Championship. He placed third in the drivers' championship and helped Ford to the manufacturers' title in both 2 ...

for X-Raid. In 2018 he will again compete in the Dakar Rally as co-driver of Dutchman Bernhard ten Brinke with a Toyota Hi-Lux for Toyota Gazoo Racing South Africa.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Perin, Michel 1957 births Living people People from Saint-Mihiel Dakar Rally co-drivers French rally co-drivers Sportspeople from Meuse (department)