Darniche's career developed during a pivotal period in European rallying, when the sport was transforming from a semi-professional pursuit into the fully structured World Rally Championship. His driving style — precise, committed, and ideally suited to smooth tarmac mountain roads — placed him at the forefront of the discipline at exactly the moment the competitive stakes were highest.
Darniche competed in the first World Rally Championship season in 1973, winning the 16th Moroccan Rally and finishing second in the 44th Alpine Rally. He was among the top competitors throughout the decade, placing third in the inaugural FIA Cup for Rally Drivers in 1977 — the precursor to the official WRC drivers' title — and recording consecutive top-ten finishes in the drivers' standings over the next two years.
His peak competitive years came behind the wheel of the Lancia Stratos HF. He won the European Rally Championship in 1976 and 1977, and the French Rally Championship in 1976 and 1978, all four titles achieved in the Stratos. The car's mid-engined layout and narrow body suited the sinuous tarmac roads of southern France and Corsica, where Darniche was most formidable.
Darniche won the Rallye Automobile Monte Carlo in 1979. He is particularly renowned for his performances on the Col de Turini, a 1,600-metre Alpine mountain pass that forms the signature stage of the Monte Carlo Rally. The Turini is typically run in complete darkness, with crews navigating ice, compacted snow, and dry tarmac in rapid succession, relying entirely on pace notes and powerful spotlights. The stage carries the nickname "Night of the Long Knives" among rally fans and journalists. Darniche won the Turini stage on ten separate occasions, a record that has never been surpassed.
The Tour de Corse — an all-tarmac event held on the mountain roads of Corsica and long regarded as the most technically demanding event on the international rally calendar — became Darniche's signature victory. He won it in 1970, 1975, 1977, 1978, 1979, and 1981, for a total of six victories. That record was later equalled by Didier Auriol but has never been exceeded. The Tour de Corse demands sustained precision over hundreds of kilometres of narrow, unguarded roads where a single mistake at speed is rarely recoverable — it is on that terrain that Darniche built his defining reputation.
Darniche's legacy rests on a body of achievement constructed almost entirely on tarmac. His six Tour de Corse victories, two European Rally Championships, two French Rally Championships, a Monte Carlo win, and ten Col de Turini stage victories form one of the most concentrated records of tarmac rally excellence in the sport's history. He competed across the formative years of the World Rally Championship and left a standard of performance on mountain tarmac that subsequent generations of French and European rally drivers have used as a benchmark.