🇲🇦 Mehdi Bennani

Mehdi Bennani is a professional touring car driver who spent 13 seasons in the World Touring Car Championship between 2009 and 2017, where he scored six wins and 19 podiums for Sebastien Loeb Racing. He holds an FIA Gold grade, placing him among the full professionals in sportscar and endurance racing. After his primary touring car career, he competed in the FIA World Touring Car Cup from 2018 to 2022, adding a seventh win and four further podiums across 72 starts.[1]

Bennani's record spans 278 starts across five series over 15 seasons. His early work came in Formula V8 3.5, a single-seater field mixing amateurs with professionals, before establishing himself in the WTCC. He remained active in touring cars into the early 2020s, taking his most recent podium in the FIA World Touring Car Cup in 2022 and finishing 13th in the championship standings that year. A brief appearance in the TCR World Tour in 2024 marked the end of his indexed racing record.[2]

Against the strongest opposition in his field, Bennani was closely matched with Tom Coronel, an FIA Gold professional, and usually finished behind Robert Huff, the 2012 World Touring Car Champion. He beat Thed Bjork, the 2017 World Touring Car Champion, on 33 occasions across their meetings, and finished ahead of Pastor Maldonado, an established professional and former GP2 champion, once in their single encounter.