Baic

Last year, Guoyu Zhang learned the hard way that things don’t always go to plan on the Dakar. The Chinese driver has been fascinated by rally-raid for almost 20 years, and started competing in offroad events over a decade ago. He took a breakout victory at the Silk Way Rally 2015, winning the T3 class alongside Sebastien Delaunay, before triumphing at the Asian Baja 2019 with He Sha. Guoyu and He then made a dream debut at Dakar 2021, finishing 14th  overall in the cars and as the best all-rookie crew. However, the world's toughest rally bit back in 2022 as the 38-year-old teamed up with Hongyu Pan. The Chinese pair rolled their car just before the rest day, then lost significant time early in the second week due to a mechanical, eventually dropping to 51st place overall. That clearly wasn't good enough for the ambitious Guoyu, who is back in 2023 with a new car and another new co-driver. His BAIC BJ40 has been upgraded to T1+ specs, with the Changchun native describing it as his ‘new weapon’ to take on the big guns. Another not-so-secret weapon will be his co-driver Jean-Pierre Garcin, who knows the Dakar like the back of his hand. The highly experienced Frenchman first took part in 1997, and has guided four different drivers -Jean-Jacques Ratet, Carlos Sousa, Guerlain Chicherit and Christian Lavieille- to a top-10 finish. As it turns out, that's exactly where Guoyu would like to end up at this Dakar. The pandemic prevented him from racing at home this year for the first time since 2004, but China's rising star is still determined to start 2023 with a bang.