The Edox ambassador fell 600 metres down a ravine at the 2024 Rallye du Valais — and ended that same weekend as Swiss Rally Champion. This is the story of the driver from the watchmaker’s own mountains.
The pace note said one thing. The road said another.
On a Friday in October 2024, high in the Swiss Alps at the Rallye du Valais, Michael Burri misread a single instruction from his co-driver — one corner, out of thousands he had taken cleanly that season — and his car left the road. What followed is difficult to type calmly: a fall of some 600 metres down a ravine, the car rolling, by published accounts, close to a hundred times. Rescuers airlifted Burri and his co-driver Gaëtan Aubry to hospital in Sion. “I saw myself go,” Burri told Swiss television afterwards. He walked away with a concussion and bruises.
Two days later, on Sunday, the mathematics of the championship were confirmed. Michael Burri — born February 6, 1988, the boy who had chased his father through the forests of the Jura — was Swiss Rally Champion for the first time in his life. Crashed on Friday. Champion on Sunday. Rally racing does not write gentle scripts.
Born into the service park
To understand how a man survives a hundred rolls and keeps his title, you have to go back to the beginning — and the beginning has a surname. Michael’s father is Olivier Burri, a four-time Swiss Rally Champion, a record nine-time winner of the Rallye du Valais, and a regular at the Monte-Carlo Rally. In the Burri household, motorsport was not a hobby. It was the family calendar. “As children, if we wanted to see our father, we had to follow him in a rally,” Michael once said. Most kids inherit their father’s eyes. Michael inherited his pace notes.
He started in regional championships as a teenager, graduated to the international stage through the Junior WRC, and built a reputation for a driving style best described as fully committed — a driver who negotiates with a corner only after he has already entered it. Podiums accumulated. So did respect. In Swiss rallying, “Burri” stopped being one legend’s name and became two.
The mountains they share
Here is the detail that makes this partnership feel less like a sponsorship and more like a neighbourhood: Michael Burri comes from Belprahon, a village in the Jura mountains — the same range, practically the same postal code, as Les Genevez, where Edox has hand-assembled its watches since 1983. The rally driver and the watchmaker grew up on the same winding roads. The stages where Burri learned to slide a car are the roads Edox’s watchmakers drive to work.
So when Edox — official timing partner of BMW M Motorsport, veteran timekeeper of the WRC, the Dakar and the world’s fastest powerboats — chose a rally ambassador, it did not go looking for a distant celebrity. It picked the champion from the next valley. On Burri’s wrist, a Chronorally is not product placement. It is local hardware, built by his neighbours, doing the same job he does: performing under punishment, in the mountains that made them both.
The comeback nobody would have blamed him for skipping
After Valais, Burri spoke openly about stopping. Nobody would have argued. He had the title, he had his life, and he had memories that would keep most people off a mountain road forever.
Instead, 71 days after the crash, he entered the 55th Ronde du Jura — and he did it in the most disarming way imaginable: behind the wheel of his very first race car, a 1994 Peugeot 106 with 115 horsepower. No factory machinery, no championship points, no pressure. Just a champion, a twenty-year-old hatchback, and the simple question every athlete must answer after disaster: is the joy still there?
It was. He said so himself — the pleasure had come back. By the 2025 season he was writing champion’s columns about the Critérium Jurassien and attacking stages again. Champions, it turns out, are not people who never fall 600 metres. They are people who show up 71 days later in a Peugeot 106, smiling.
What a watchmaker learns from a man like this
Edox builds watches tested against absurdity — chronometers certified through fifteen days of Swiss federal COSC testing, dive watches rated to 1,000 metres, chronographs engineered for gloved hands on gravel stages. But laboratory numbers only simulate life. Michael Burri is the non-simulated version: proof that the qualities Edox engineers into steel and titanium — resilience, precision under stress, the refusal to stop — exist first in people, and in the mountains both of them come from.
A brand born in 1884 as a gift of love, independent ever since, from a village in the Jura. A champion born into rallying, forged by a 600-metre fall, from a village in the Jura. Some partnerships are negotiated. This one was practically geological.
Wear what the champion wears
The Chronorally collection — hand-assembled in Les Genevez, engineered for exactly the conditions Burri drives through — is available at authorized Edox retailers across Canada and the United States. Find yours through our stockists page. The mountains are optional.
Frequently asked questions
Who is Michael Burri?
Michael Burri, born February 6, 1988, is a Swiss rally driver and Edox brand ambassador. The son of four-time Swiss champion Olivier Burri, he competed in the Junior WRC and won the Swiss Rally Championship in 2024. He comes from Belprahon, in the Swiss Jura mountains near Edox’s home of Les Genevez.
What happened to Michael Burri at the 2024 Rallye du Valais?
Burri misjudged a corner after misreading a pace note and his car fell roughly 600 metres down a ravine, rolling close to a hundred times by published accounts. He and co-driver Gaëtan Aubry were airlifted to hospital in Sion and survived with minor injuries. Two days later, Burri was confirmed as 2024 Swiss Rally Champion.
Is Michael Burri an Edox ambassador?
Yes. Michael Burri is an official Edox brand ambassador, featured by the Swiss watchmaker as its rally champion. Both come from the Jura mountains — Burri from Belprahon, Edox from Les Genevez.
Who is Olivier Burri?
Olivier Burri is Michael’s father — a four-time Swiss Rally Champion, record nine-time winner of the Rallye International du Valais, and a regular entrant at the Monte-Carlo Rally.
Did Michael Burri return to racing after his crash?
Yes. Seventy-one days after the Valais accident, Burri competed in the 55th Ronde du Jura driving his first-ever race car, a 1994 Peugeot 106, and continued racing through the 2025 season.
What watch does Michael Burri wear?
As an Edox ambassador, Burri is associated with the Edox Chronorally — the brand’s motorsport chronograph, hand-assembled in Les Genevez and engineered for rally conditions.
Where can I buy the Edox Chronorally in North America?
Through authorized Edox retailers across Canada and the United States. See our stockists page for the nearest authorized jeweller with full warranty and certified service.