Brp

In January 2021, Cristina Gutiérrez became the first woman to win a stage in the Dakar Rally since Jutta Kleinschmidt in 2005. And in 2022, she took another step forward by claiming her maiden Dakar podium in the T3 class. One year later, she has a new major challenge: the overall victory in the category. The 31-year-old Spaniard - an orthodontist by profession - who got her start in rallying in 2011, is currently the female reference in this discipline, having become the first woman to win the FIA Cross-Country World Cup with the Red Bull Off-Road Team in 2021. An engine failure and reliability problems on the 2022 Dakar eliminated her from the fight for the win. However, it did not prevent her from finishing on the podium. This year she has changed team and vehicle with Red Bull, with the formation of the new Red Bull Can-Am Factory Team. Cristina will now have a reliable car, which allows her to think about the overall victory.  Cristina's ceiling still seems to have no limits, as she has been exponentially improving since she finished her first Dakar in 2017, the first woman from her country to do so in the category. She has spent the last two years driving in Extreme E alongside Sébastien Loeb in the X44 team of seven-time F1 world champion Lewis Hamilton and, in this second year in the electric category, Cristina and 'Seb' won the championship. Gutiérrez participated with Red Bull in the first FIM W2RC World Rally-Raid Championship in 2022 and fought for the title until the final round. A few setbacks prevented her from winning the crown, but she still claimed a brilliant podium finish in the overall T3.   After competing in the two previous Dakars with Frenchman François Cazalet as co-driver, this year she will have Pablo Moreno Huete by her side, who provided her with the navigation notes on the 2019 and 2020 Dakars. Together, they want to continue to make history.