Career
Born in Montpellier, and initially an ambulance driver, Auriol made his name as a French rally driver in the World Rally Championship throughout the 1990s. He was a factory candidate for Lancia, Toyota and Peugeot among others, before losing his seat at Škoda at the end of 2003. At the age of 21, Auriol started rallying in an old Simca 1000.
He drove the Simca 2 Years, then he got a Renault 5 Turbo, With this car, he drove in the French Rallye Championship.
In 1986 a MG dealer gave him a Metro 6R4. Foreign 1989 he moved to the Martini Lancia team, where he remained for four seasons, driving three successive versions of the then-dominant Lancia Delta Integrale.
However, later in the same season, on the Rally Catalunya, Toyota were found to have used an illegal device in the turbocharger to increase the power of the engine, and were excluded from the results of the 1995 championship and banned for next year. 1996 Auriol contested only two World Championship events.
He drove for Subaru in Sweden and for Mitsubishi in San Remo.
Auriol drove for Toyota two next years, gaining two wins. When Toyota retired from World Rally Championship after 1999, Auriol moved to SEAT on board of the SEAT Córdoba WRC E2. With Auriol"s experience, SEAT managed to grab the third podium place at the Safari Rally in Kenya, and later that season to launch their third evolution of the Córdoba WRC. However at the end of the season the Spanish manufacturer retired from WRC to focus on the development of a special series of high performance cars.
Auriol still managed to deal with Peugeot for 2001 season, but in only asphalt-rallies where Auriol managed to be quicker than his team mate, Marcus Grönholm.
2002 was kind of gap year for Auriol, but he made contract with Skoda team for 2003. Auriol was responsible for the development work of the Škoda Fabia WRC. Even as late as 2001 Auriol was still racking up podiums there.