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Cristina Gutiérrez
Spanish rally raid driver From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Cristina Gutiérrez Herrero (born 24 July 1991) is a Spanish dentist and rally raid driver.
She became the first Spanish female car driver to finish the Dakar Rally in 2017. In 2021 she was the second woman to win a stage in Dakar Rally history.[1][2] She won the 2024 edition in the T3 category.[3]
In 2021 she won the FIA World Cup for Cross-Country Rallies in the T3 category, becoming the first-ever female driver to claim it.[4]
In 2022, Gutiérrez won the Extreme E electric cross-country series alongside Sébastien Loeb for Lewis Hamilton's Team X44, making her the first Spaniard to ever win it.[5]
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Racing career
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Early career
Gutiérrez debuted in rally raid in 2010 at age eighteen. She was overall runner-up at the 2015 Spanish Off-Road Rally Championship.
Dakar Rally
Gutiérrez debuted her international rally career in the 2017 Dakar Rally, racing in a modified Mitsubishi Pajero.[6] Gutiérrez's first race was a success. She finished 44th overall and 6th in the T1.S class, in a race where 27% of class entrants did not manage to complete the course.[6] This made her the first woman from Spain to ever finish the off-road classic.[7] In 2018 she finished second in the T1.S class, again driving a Mitsubishi Montero. The Spaniard finished 7th in the T1.2 class in 2019 and 2020, both driving a Mitsubishi Eclipse Cross.
In the 2021 Dakar Rally, Gutiérrez competed in the T3.1 lightweight vehicles category on an OT3-01. She became only the second woman ever (after Jutta Kleinschmidt in 2005) to win a Dakar stage, however she retired in stage 8.[8]
In the 2022 Dakar Rally, she was the first Spanish female to reach the podium of the Dakar Rally, when she and co-driver Francois Cazalet finished third in the Light Prototype (T3) category driving a Red Bull OT3 prototype.[9][10][11][12][13]
In the 2023 Dakar Rally, Gutiérrez finished in 4th position in the T3 category, after having many issues in the first week that prevented her from fighting for the victory. Nonetheless, she won the prologue stage and the last stage, being the only woman ever do it so after Jutta Kleinschmidt.[14][15][16]
In the 2024 Dakar Rally, Gutiérrez claimed the win in the Challenger category (formerly known as T3), as she profited from a late issue for leader Mitch Guthrie. She became the second woman in history to achieve this feat, following Jutta Kleinschmidt's victory in 2001.[17][18][19][20] She is also the first Spanish woman to ever win at the Dakar Rally.[21]
Extreme E
In December 2020 she was announced as the female driver for Lewis Hamilton's Team X44 in Extreme E, partnering with Sébastien Loeb.[10] They finished the season in 2nd behind Rosberg X Racing's Johan Kristoffersson and Molly Taylor. The teams were level on points but RXR were ahead on virtue of their 3 wins to X44's one win.
Loeb and Gutiérrez were re-signed to Team X44 for 2022, for Extreme-E's second season.[22] Team X44, with Gutiérrez and Loeb, ended up winning the second season of Extreme-E championship in the last race.[23]
Gutiérrez moved to McLaren XE for 2024 and will partner Mattias Ekström.[24] On September 6, a week before the scheduled Island X-Prix, Extreme E announced that the rounds in Sardinia and Phoenix were cancelled.[25][26]
Other Series
Gutiérrez has also been her country's Women's Off-Road Champion since 2012, and outright vice-champion in the same discipline in 2015 following a series of second places in Spanish Bajas.[7] She won six consecutive times in the Women's Class of the Spanish TT Rally Championship.[27]
In 2021 she became the first female driver to win an FIA World Cup for the Cross-Country Rallies title. She completed the last stage with a broken back.[28]
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Racing record
Dakar Rally
Complete Extreme E results
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* Season still in progress.
Complete World Rally-Raid Championship results
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References
External links
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