Rally Raid
Cristina Gutiérrez harnesses mental strength to conquer the Dakar
Spanish off-road star Cristina Gutiérrez is one of the few women drivers at Dakar 2026 and although she's been racing since she was a teenager, her career journey hasn’t always been a smooth ride.
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It's the final stage of the Dakar Rally 2024, the toughest since it arrived in Saudi Arabia. After thousands of kilometres of racing over towering sand dunes and jagged rocks, Cristina Gutiérrez is weary and happy enough to take second place to complete her final race in the T3/Challenger class.
The 32-year-old is due to join her Extreme-E team-mate Sébastien Loeb and five-time Dakar Rally winner Nasser Al-Attiyah in the new Dacia Sandriders rally raid team, racing cars prepared by the mighty Prodrive. A podium place is a worthy way to end this chapter of the Spaniard’s storied Dakar career.
Victory in the 2024 Dakar came in a thrilling final stage
© Flavien Duhamel/Red Bull Content Pool
But then, up ahead, she notices an animated figure waving frantically. In the heat of the Saudi sun, someone is jumping up and down like a man possessed. It’s an old friend from Spain. Over the noise of her Can-Am buggy, Gutiérrez can just make out what he’s saying: “Go! Go! Go! You can win! You can win!” As she puts her foot to the floor, she hears other Dakar fans urging her forward.
This was not in the script for the final stage of the 2024 Dakar Rally: it was supposed to be a 175km rally – a sprint by Dakar Rally standards – to the finish in Yanbu.
29 min
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Her erstwhile team-mate Mitch Guthrie Jr started the day with a 25-minute lead over Gutiérrez, but now he’s struggling with an engine problem on his Taurus. It’s tough on the American who has been protecting his lead throughout the second week of the Dakar. He’s done everything right, and yet this is the Dakar, which has a habit of biting when you least expect it. Guthrie Jr is stopped for 40 minutes, handing the win to Gutiérrez.
She is oblivious to all of this as she takes the final flag. It’s only as she emerges from the cockpit of the Can-Am that the assembled press tells her she has won the rally – perhaps. “I have mixed feelings because I’m sorry for Mitch (Guthrie) because he deserved to win as well, but this is my dream come true. Maybe.”
It’s only after the official timings are posted that it’s fully confirmed. “I started to celebrate. It was a really amazing, unbelievable moment that I will never forget."
The moment Gutiérrez found out she had won the 2024 Dakar Rally
© Marcelo Maragni/Red Bull Content Pool
The win begins to sink in
© Marcelo Maragni/Red Bull Content Pool
It’s the culmination of two weeks of racing massive distances in taxing terrain. “It’s been crazy. The marathon was really tough. It was 48 hours of racing through huge dunes, but then, as athletes, that’s what we want. We want to be challenged.”
For Gutiérrez, her unbreakable spirit and determination to win were key to her victory: "I don't know if I am stronger than other racers, but I am someone who will fight to the finish. Ever since I started, I've had to do everything in my power to get to the Dakar. I had to fight for support, for sponsors and I spent every hour I could working on the car. I'm very proud of that, and I know I will do all I can to deliver my best."
The Dakar 2024 win makes Gutiérrez only the second woman to win the Dakar Rally after her one-time mentor Jutta Kleinschmidt – more on that below – and the victory marks the end of a long journey where this fiercely intelligent, determined and capable athlete has had to overcome a staggering lack of opportunity to reach the top.
Let’s take a look back to the start of that journey and how, with the 2026 edition on the starting line, Gutiérrez has developed a formidable skillset that has taken her to the pinnacle of international motorsport.
01
Making her Dakar debut
That success gave Gutiérrez the belief and the backing to be able to compete internationally at the Sealine Rally in Qatar and then the Dakar in 2017. That Dakar was one of the toughest in the history of the event. The event’s sporting director, Marc Coma, ensured that the route was particularly challenging, and that was before the worst floods to hit Bolivia and Argentina in 40 years hit the course.
Gutiérrez in action at the 2023 Dakar Rally
© Marcelo Maragni/Red Bull Content Pool
Navigating her Mitsubishi Pajero through a treacherous landscape of mud, rocks, deep water and even landslides, Gutiérrez became the first Spanish woman to complete the rally on four wheels. It proved she not only had the speed but also the judgement to reach the finish in a course that defeated multiple champions like Nasser Al-Attiyah and Carlos Sainz. She repeated the feat again at the next two Dakars, improving to 26th overall in 2019.
Gutiérrez caught the eye of Lewis Hamilton and signed to his new Extreme E team, where she shared driving duties with Sébastien Loeb. And it was Loeb who helped to secure her a place in the new Red Bull Off-Road Junior Team to race in the new Lightweights category featuring small, two-person buggies or SxS (side-by-side).
In her first outing in the lightweight class, she became the first woman to win a Dakar stage since the brilliant Jutta Kleinschmidt in 2005.
Loeb, Kleinschmidt, Hamilton – some key players are in place but Gutiérrez’s journey to this point has been arduous. Let’s take a step back to where it all started…
02
Growing up fast
Gutiérrez grew up in a medical family in Burgos, Spain. Her father is a dentist and motorsport fan. One of four siblings, she followed in her father’s footsteps to become a dentist while blazing her own trail as a racing driver. She started racing karts in friendly competition with her brother at the local kart track.
One day, they decided to enter a race. “They just put some hay pallets around a circuit,” recalls Gutiérrez. "I told my dad, and he liked the idea and signed us up. I was nine or ten years old, but the day before the race I didn’t dare, the truth is that I was the only girl and at that moment I felt embarrassed, and I didn’t dare to start. My brother entered the competition."
It’s a story that’s familiar to too many girls interested in motorsport.
Gutiérrez has been racing since she was a teenager
© Kin Marcin/Red Bull Content Pool
03
Finding the right role models
Gutiérrez was still fascinated with motorsport and drove karts, rode bikes and developed her skills whenever she had free time from her studies. At the same time, motorsport was going from strength to strength in Spain as the country became a hotbed for talent.
Fernando Alonso rose from relatively humble origins to become a two-time F1 world champion and Spanish riders Marc Márquez, Jorge Lorenzo and Dani Pedrosa dominated MotoGP™. Away from motorsport, a tennis player from Majorca was proving that with strength and determination, you can reach the top.
“Rafa Nadal is 100 percent my reference and has been for years,” says Gutiérrez. "Rafa has so many sides, it’s not only about the sport, it’s about the values he has, the values he communicates, how he speaks, how he talks to people.
“He never gives up. Those values from athletes really impact you and it’s as if you learn from everything he does. I love watching him.”
As a teenager, Gutiérrez finally had a woman in motorsport who proved it was possible to break into F1. In 2012, María de Villota landed a third driver role with the Marussia F1 Team. Perhaps those barriers were just starting to come down.
“I did a driving course with María and I ended up really liking her. She was great with media, she was at the top. It’s important to have a figure that you can relate to.”
04
An undeniable will to win – or just stubborn?
When she passed her driving test, Gutiérrez and her brother began competing, racing for the first time at the Históricos Baja Tierras del Cid in Burgos.
“We had some friends who were competing in a 4x4," she says. "I started asking them about it: ‘How does it work? How do you co-drive?’ We were very keen. The idea was to swap roles with my brother, so on day one he would be the co-driver and I would be the driver, and the next day we’d switch. In the first race it was my turn as a driver, and I loved it. Given the way I am, I said: ‘No, no, I’m not going as co-driver, I go as a driver or I am not going at all.'”
Gutiérrez made a successful car debut at Rally du Maroc
© Kin Marcin/Red Bull Content Pool
My strength is my perseverance. Some drivers don't have it, so I use that to fight
With some siblings, that might lead to a big fight, but her brother was pragmatic. “I’m stubborn. Very stubborn," she says. "My brother is the opposite, he’s very peaceful and he always takes care of me. He said: ‘I can see you’re doing well, I’d rather leave the driving to you.’”
She stuck to her guns and her skills were rewarded. Nadal would be proud. “We did five years and won the Spanish championship. I was so happy to do this with my brother.”
Then her brother had to study for his final exams and became a doctor.
05
Why do people call her Tortu?
“It’s my nickname from school because I loved speed. I’ve always thought it was very funny,” Gutiérrez laughs. “I’ve even added a turtle as my logo.”
And perhaps it’s a good fit, being the winner out of the race between the hare and the tortoise. “My strength is my perseverance, some drivers don’t have it, so I use that to fight," says Gutiérrez. “Maybe I am not the fastest driver at 100 percent, but I am very constant and on the mental side, very strong.”
06
Dominating in Spain
Gutiérrez continued her studies but also carried on racing, dominating the female category of the Spanish championship, but the glass ceiling was still her toughest opponent.
Gutiérrez training in Abu Dhabi
© Kin Marcin/Red Bull Content Pool
“When I was competing in the Spanish championship, I tried to remain realistic,” she explains. "We all know how difficult it is to break into motorsport, let alone make a living from it. At that time, my objective was to compete in Spain and do the best I could."
Multiple championships followed where she was cheered on by her biggest fans: her family. “They came with me to every race," she says. "They were for the good and bad moments. And when I do well, they are the happiest.
“There was even a time when I almost quit, I was 22 years old, I flipped the car over and destroyed it. My father fixed the car secretly – he sorted everything and left it ready for the following race.”
But the prize money was only enough to support another year of racing and Gutiérrez was also studying her master’s degree in dentistry. Without a major backer, there was no opportunity for her to step up and prove herself in international competition.
“I raced for 10 or 11 years and then suddenly the FIA sent all the girls in the federation an application for a campus for women in Qatar in 2016,” reveals Gutiérrez. “That was the leap forward. I sent my application and was selected. We went to Qatar and the teachers were Kleinschmidt and Fabrizia Pons.”
I wanted to finally prove what I can do in a state-of-the-art car
07
Gutiérrez’s big break
The master class in Qatar was a major turning point: it broadened Gutiérrez’s horizons and showed her that she was a top racing driver. She was selected from a field of 180 drivers to be among the nine drivers – including Molly Taylor and Emma Gilmour – and worked with two legends of off-road racing.
Gutiérrez finished in the top three and left with the confidence to put together a bid to race at the Dakar. First of all, she needed that backer. “I reached out to the vice-principal of Grupo Antonlín, a very large local company in Burgos,” she says.
“We connected really well: she saw something in me – and even today I don’t know what it was – and she helped me a lot, a lot. It’s thanks to her that I got to the Dakar.”
That 2017 edition was a breakthrough and it’s no coincidence that Gutiérrez raced to reach the finish line. Not in order to secure a high position but because she knew that by reaching Buenos Aires, she could attract more sponsors. “You can’t imagine how hard it is to spend the whole year looking for financial support just for one race," she says. Even then, I didn’t have the resources to get a competitive car. It could be really frustrating.”
08
Taking a gamble
In the run-up to the 2021 Dakar Rally, Gutiérrez’s main sponsor withdrew. The front-running MINI X-Raid offered her a drive, but after years of rallying, Gutiérrez finally had access to a competitive package and the money wasn’t there.
“It was so frustrating. I announced I was quitting because I didn’t have the financial support for Dakar,” says Gutiérrez. But there was a glimmer of hope: MINI offered her the chance to race in the inaugural Andalusian Rally in Spain. It was closer to home and smaller scale, which made it more affordable. Due to the pandemic, there were no other big rally-raid races, which meant all the big stars would be use it as preparation for the Dakar.
Cristina Gutiérrez at the finish line of Rallye du Maroc
© Kin Marcin/Red Bull Content Pool
Gutiérrez took out a loan to pay for her race seat. “I was betting my future on one hand. But I wanted to finally prove what I can do in a state-of-the-art car.”
It was all or nothing, but Gutiérrez’s gamble paid off: she finished fourth and a few days later, she received a DM. It was from the manager of Lewis Hamilton’s Extreme E team, requesting a meeting. “They wanted to hire me for Extreme E, which started in February the following year. They said your boss will be Lewis Hamilton and your team-mate will be Sébastien Loeb. It was surreal.”
09
Proving herself at the highest level
She met Loeb in testing in the UK in mid-December. The nine-time WRC champion already knew about her from her exploits at the Dakar. When she revealed that she wouldn’t be racing in 2021, the Frenchman made a phone call and then told her: “Someone from Red Bull is going to give you a call.”
The next day she was in Dubai for testing and was signed to the Red Bull Off-Road Junior Team racing an Overdrive OT3 buggy in the T3 Lightweight category. The race start was two weeks away. “It was crazy. My life had changed in less than one month.”
10
A historic stage win at the Dakar
Her 2021 Dakar got off to the best possible start with a win on Stage One. No woman had won a stage at the Dakar since her tutor Kleinschmidt in 2005. But for Gutiérrez, there was no time to celebrate. “I was in shock, I could not take in what had just happened.”
Gutiérrez and her new co-driver François Cazalet were the early pace setters in the T3 category, winning the marathon stage before having to retire. “When I won the stage and I started to compete with Red Bull, the doors opened, it was a feeling of liberation, now I could give it all,” says Gutiérrez.
Dakar in 2021 proved to be a pivotal moment in Cristina's career
© Marcelo Maragni/Red Bull Content Pool
Dakar history makers Jutta Kleinschmidt and Cristina Gutiérrez
© Julien Delfosse/DPPI/Red Bull Content Pool
“When the Dakar Rally was over, I realised that Red Bull were still interested. It was an incredible opportunity.”
It meant that in addition to racing Extreme E with Loeb, she was also competing in the World Cup for Cross-Country Rallies (now the World Rally-Raid Championship), which included the Andalusian Rally, the Silk Way and the Rally du Maroc. Gutiérrez raced to an emotional victory in Spain. Round two, Rally Kazakhstan, was to prove both her skills as a driver but also her incredible determination.
Leading on the final day, her buggy hit a hole in the desert at the start of the stage. Gutiérrez broke three vertebrae, the “horrible pain” taking her breath away. She paused, focused and chose to race on. “It hurt so much that I could not even step on the brake. I was just trying to survive, braking as softly as I could so that it wouldn’t hurt me.”
Gutiérrez and Cazalet completed the 260km stage and the 40km to the ceremonial finish where paramedics lifted her straight from the buggy to the hospital.
Cristina putting the OT3 buggy through its paces at Dakar in 2021
© Marcelo Maragni/Red Bull Content Pool
After surgery, Gutiérrez went through two months of intensive physio and training to get back in shape to race. She returned to compete in Rally du Maroc, scoring more vital points and second place at the Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge sealed the title. She returned to the 2023 Dakar as a world champion and proceeded to claim third overall and two more stage wins.
2024 was an historic year, with Gutiérrez and co-driver Pablo Moreno snatching a last-gasp victory in the T3 class on the very final stage of the epic race to become the first female driver to win the Dakar since Jutta Kleinschmidt in 2001. "It was a dream come true, an amazing moment I will never forget," she said just after crossing the finish line in Yanbu.
11
Gutiérrez goes electric
More titles were to follow as Gutiérrez and Loeb went from strength to strength in Extreme E, taking a podium in the first round in Saudi Arabia and winning the final round in the UK to finish as runners-up in the overall championship.
Cristina Gutiérrez with Sébastien Loeb in Morocco
© Kin Marcin/Red Bull Content Pool
“The race format is not the same as rally-raid but the cars are similar,” Gutiérrez explained. “The best race for me will be in Saudi Arabia because there will be a lot of sand dunes like the Dakar.”
In 2022, they took victory in the Atacama in Chile and three more podiums to claim the title. This year, Gutiérrez made her debut in the World Rallycross championship, racing in Norway and the famous Holjes round in Sweden.
The importance of sustainability is also a key factor: “It’s important to have this type of championship, these days. We need to make changes in our lives. This is the future!”
Away from racing, Gutiérrez is also interested in getting involved in environmental projects, particularly cleaning up the oceans of plastic. As a dentist, she has also volunteered her services in humanitarian efforts in Burkina Faso. “I usually work with a small NGO," she explains. "I don’t talk about it on social media because there’s been attacks and it’s better not to draw too much attention to the projects.”
World champion racing driver, a humanitarian, an environmentalist and a healer. Does Gutiérrez think of herself as a role model? She’s characteristically modest but if she can be a Rafael Nadal for a boy or girl dreaming of success, she’d be delighted. “I don’t know if I am but if my story inspires someone, I’d be very proud,” she says. “If I can be a reference and help girls and boys to get into sport it would be a very beautiful thing.”
12
Debuting with the Dacia Sandriders
After years of working her way up the hard way to finally become a Dakar Rally champion, Gutiérrez is now getting the rewards – a place in the premier T1 car class as part of the Dacia Sandriders Team.
With a finish in Dakar's premier class already, Gutiérrez is ready for more
© Flavien Duhamel/Red Bull Content Pool
The Renault-owned brand stepped into into rally raid racing for the first time in 2025 and has assembled a seriously powerful squad in their quest to win the Dakar Rally, bringing in renowed British motorsports engineering company Prodrive to prep their vehicles and signing up five-time Dakar champion Nasser Al-Attiyah, WRC's all-time champ Sébastien Loeb and Brazilian podium finisher Lucas Moraes to drive alongside Gutiérrez.
The Dakar Rally 2025 was an invaluable for Gutiérrez on her Ultimate class debut and for 2026 she's back with the Dacia crew for a second crack at racing against rally raid's best for glory in the Saudi Arabian desert.
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