Sknow what it’s like to win world, rallies and stages of Dakar. He has stepped on the Arab race podium and has achieved the milestone of driving an official car in the highest category (he will do it next year in Dacia alongside giants like Loeb y Al-Attiyah)… but the jackpot is missing: the win.
Cristina Gutirrez This year you will have a golden opportunity to close that circle triumphantly in the category that has elevated him: the Challenger T3. And get a little closer to your mentor and reference, Jutta Kleinschmidtthe only woman winner of a Dakar (in absolute category in 2001).
The woman from Burgos will make her race debut with the Taurus, after driving a Can-AM in 2023.
From Can-AM to Taurus: change of mount
It will not be easy because there are more competition than ever…but you have options, and many. And even more so with the change he is going to make at the last minute: he gets off Can-AM (the dominating car of the category in recent years) to get on the promising Tauruswho was on the verge of winning the W2RC (he has taken two victories in rallies) and that last year, In its premiere, it won five stages.
Winning…obviously motivates me, but it doesn’t obsess me to the point where I have to force myself to win now.
As promising as the references that MARCA has is that in pure performance it is between one and two seconds per kilometer faster than her rival: “Yes, possibly,” confirms the Spaniard, who has worked occasionally on its development for more than a year. “It takes a little more for the Can-AM to reach top speed of 135 km/h and there we have an advantage. It is a car with a tubular chassis, with a gearboxwhich debuted in the last Dakar and although it has had youth problems He has played the entire World Cup fighting for the title until the end. It’s already a pretty proven car.…and with whom I have felt super good. It is a change and you have to adapt, but I think it will be quite positive“, he predicts in conversation with MARCA.
The Taurus T3 Max is Cristina’s new machine for the Dakar 2024.
It is very likely that the behavior of the machine is the first factor that unbalances the category. With two monsters like Austin Jonesdefender of the title, and Lopez Vest (three-time champion), plus the newcomer Rock Baciuska on the side of Can-AM (which prepares a new car for next year) and Cristina, Mitch Guthrie y Eryk Goczal with the Taurus, the pulse can fall on the side that is more reliability have. And there, the Spanish woman’s car has something of a disadvantage.
“It’s a purest racing carwith a more complex electronics and out there it can give a little something [en Marruecos sufrieron]. But its chassis is much superior to Can-AM. On broken ground, like camel grass, it swallows everything and you can go much faster and in dunes it has been greatly improved the change sequence and it also goes very well. “A weapon to… aspire to everything?
When I arrive at Dacia I want to be a complete enough driver to be able to give proposals that can improve the car and the team.
“Winning…obviously motivates me“But it doesn’t obsess me to the point that I have to force myself to win now,” he says, taking off the pressure. And he gives as an example one of his greatest supporters, Sebastian Loeb: “Seb has been through I don’t know how many Dakars already, six or seven, and being Loeb he has not managed to win one. It is a race that no longer only depends on going fast, depends on many other things. The important thing is to be there in the fight, I have been able to win it for three years and we know the level we have, but it is a race in which you depend a lot on reliability and on us being 100% during all those days.
Gutirrez will once again form a pair with Pablo Moreno Huete.
With an eye on Dacia
A additional advantage For Gutirrez it is that running with the peace of mind be clear about where you will be next year: “Have a project already closed for the next two years gives you a certain calm and it makes you focus on what you are now, in the present. The objective is to go out and win and learn from each car, because everything I have done with the Can-AM, with the car Extreme E or with this now it will help me when I get to Dacia. When that happens, I want to be a pilot complete enough to be able to give proposals that can improve the car and the team.” And it doesn’t hurt to reach an official team with the Dakar winner stripes…
