Daniel Elena, the world's most successful co-driver, has decided to stop racing. With nine world championship titles shared with Sebastien Loeb, the world's most successful rally driver, Elena has decided against racing in the 2022 season and to any that will follow.
Born in Monaco in 1972, Daniel Elena started his racing career back in 1992 but had his first full season as a co-driver in 1996. Two years later, he started racing with Sebastien Loeb, and the pair became the most successful in the history of the World Rally Championship.
Those nine world championship titles for driver and co-driver were obtained after 79 WRC race wins and 119 podium finishes from 180 championship starts. Together, Daniel Elena and Sebastien Loeb managed to win 925 stages in the WRC.
The Loeb-Elena team's first rally was the 1998 edition of the Monte Carlo Rally, while their last race together was the 2020 Rally Turkey. However, the last time the two managed to win a WRC event was back at the 2018 Rally Catalunya in Spain. Mind you, the first time that Daniel Elena managed to navigate Sebastien Loeb to a WRC win was in 2002 in Germany.
In time, the pair managed to win the Monte Carlo Rally seven times. That is Elena's home rally, as he was born in Monte Carlo. Years later, Daniel Elena became the first person to receive the Michael Park Trophy, a yearly award for rally co-drivers that is given in memory of Michael Steven Park, a WRC co-driver who died during a rally in 2005.
Interestingly, Daniel Elena also entered a WRC event as a driver back in 1998, when he drove a Peugeot 106 in the Monte Carlo Rally. He finished in 36th place but never competed as a driver since. He did have two other starts in local rallies with the same car, but it seems that Daniel Elena chose to focus on his career as a co-driver instead.
It is worth noting that the second most successful co-driver in the WRC, Julien Ingrassia, Sebastien Ogier's co-driver, has announced his decision to end his career as a co-driver at the end of the 2021 season. Ingrassia raced alongside Sebastien Ogier for 16 seasons, and the pair managed to win eight world champion titles, the last one being in 2021.
Between 2016 and 2019, the pair also competed in the Dakar Rally and obtained two podium finishes. The 2021 event was their last Dakar together, while a French national rally this year was their last competition together.
Two months after the 2021 Dakar Rally, Daniel Elena announced on social media that his teammate had to fire him after critics from Prodrive, the team that entered them in the competition.
Daniel Elena's retirement from motorsport was motivated by his decision to focus on other things in his life, mostly on his family. As WRC.com notes, Daniel Elena remains good friends with Sebastien Loeb.
With Daniel Elena's retirement from competitive motorsport sealed, it will be interesting to see who will be beside Sebastien Loeb in his WRC outings this year, which are supposed to happen with M-Sport if the team strikes a deal with the Frenchman.
Sebastian's love for cars began at a young age. Little did he know that a career would emerge from this passion (and that it would not, sadly, involve being a professional racecar driver). In over fourteen years, he got behind the wheel of several hundred vehicles and in the offices of the most important car publications in his homeland. Full profile
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