A few days ago, Dacia announced the company’s sports plan. From 2025, will participate in the most iconic endurance rally on the planet, the Dakar. Over there, the Spanish Cristina Gutierrez It will be one of the official pilots. Her track record is admirable and this will only be the icing on the cake of her career.
The motor world has an increasing female presence, and in Spain, the pilot from Burgos is to blame for this. As a child, it was clear to her that the steering wheel would always accompany her as she grew. Her other three siblings were also fond of asphalt, but she was the one who put the most energy into it.
Kilometer by kilometer, making history
in the year 2017Cristina Gutiérrez became the first Spanish female driver to finish the Dakar in cars, after overcoming a journey of 9,000 kilometers through Paraguay, Bolivia and Argentina. Leaving behind in the classification a quarter of the participating cars. Many of them, with more means and experience than the then 25-year-old. The German Jutta Kleinschmidt was the first to finish a Dakar in 1997. “I am proud to have her here every day. She was my first teacher, really ”, she admitted about the pilot who won the Dakar in 2001.
At the end of 2020, X-Raid gave him a chance behind the wheel of a Mini to evaluate her potential in the Andalucía Rally, something that helped Red Bull to bet on her. First, came the announcement of his signing for the new electric raid competition, the Extreme E (category of electric SUVs), to represent none other than Lewis Hamilton’s team.
It hasn’t always been a bed of roses
Life is full of obstacles, and the one from Burgos was not going to be less. Cristina, who graduated in dentistry and began working in what was her vocation, almost left out of the Dakar 2021 due to the economic crisis that the planet was experiencing due to Covid-19, but at the last minute he managed to confirm his place with the Red Bull Junior Team and thus managed to make history in competition to be the first Spanish woman to win the Dakar. Also, in January, she achieved another milestone: being the third woman to stand on the final podium of a Dakar. Her feat was carried out in the T3 category, which is for light prototypes.
Your teammate at Dacia will be Sebastien Loeb. after winning nine titles in the World Rally Championship, made the move to the Dakar in 2016. His only objective was to win, but the toughest race in the world has not allowed him to achieve that goal. “It is a dream to share a team with Loeb, he is my mentor”, commented Cristina about what the Frenchman represents for her, with whom she already shared a team in Extreme E.
Marc Coma and Carlos Sainz, five and three titles, are the highest national figures in which the dentist will try to reflect. Cristina’s past is historical, the present is a reality and the future is exciting. She still has more than a year to go before the start of the next edition in Saudi Arabia, but surely the Dacia driver is already working to continue writing her name in the motorsport books.
