One of the strongest teams of this Dakar is made up of Dacia Sandrider, with a triplet formed by the five-time rally winner Nasser Al-Attiyah (co-driven by Edouard Boulanger), the nine-time world champion Sébastien Loeb (accompanied by Fabian Lurquin) and the brand new winner of the Challenger category in the 2024 Dakar, Cristina Gutiérrez and her co-pilot Pablo Moreno. The Spanish duo looked for a space during the competition to serve in the desert the two Spanish media that visited the Romanian brand’s tent with Dacia. -How are they experiencing the Dakar? -Cristina Gutiérrez: We are quite calm. We haven’t stopped since we arrived. The day before the prologue was more about resting and passing all the administrative controls. You take the opportunity to see friends. It’s all very familiar because we know the entire camp and you start to stop. And from there, without rest. -How are you going to face the race? -CG: We haven’t left anything for the last day. I am a big fan of reviewing everything and so is Pablo, but even if you have things clear you have to know that the Dakar is a race where planning is complex because you don’t know what is going to happen. You have three or four plans and if one fits, well.-Pablo Moreno: It is the most uncontrollable race in the world. We came from a lot of competition in Challenger and I think we have both adapted well to the change.-CG: Before we talked more and now the notes have to be much shorter and more concise. You can’t stop. I ask you to simplify. It is very complicated because they give him a drawing, he has to interpret it, transmit it to me and I interpret what he wants to tell me… There are two interpretations in 200 meters, that’s why we have to go well in advance. -Like the telephone game…-CG: Yes, a broken telephone (laughs). -PM: I read what a guy has interpreted, he has drawn it and I have to transmit it to her and make sure everything matches. -CG: But many times it doesn’t add up. Related News Dakar 2025 standard Yes «We are not playing badges, the desert is dangerous» Laura Marta-How many Dakars have they been together?-PM: Four, this is the fifth.- Winners last year in Challenger and in the official team in this one, do they look at you differently now?-CG: No, because the Challenger is a very tight competition. You have to go at your maximum because when you lose speed you lose minutes and we are used to that pressure. When you move up to Ultimate there are other favorites and that takes the pressure off us. Nasser and Loeb have this pressure because they have to go out to win from the first moment. We are calmer there, but it is true that we are going to go out and compete.-What would be a good position?-PM: A top-10 would be good.-CG: Ambitious, a top-5, but it is complicated and above all the first year. Being realistic, seeing how we went in Morocco and knowing that there are more people and more stages… a top-10 is viable. Related News Standard Rally Si Dacia, Sainz’s great threat in the Dakar Sergi Font Al-Attiyah, Loeb and Cristina Gutiérrez , to prevent the fifth Tuareg of the Spanish-Between the fight Nasser, Loeb and Carlos Sainz, the Toyotas…-CG: And the Minis… I think the Dakar will They will play between Carlos, Loeb and Nasser. -But are you putting a triple in the pool, that doesn’t matter… -CG: I would be excited for Seb to win this year. -PM: If the cars were older I would tell you that the podium would be Loeb, Nasser and Carlos. But we are talking about two new brands and a new brand has never won as soon as it arrives. -Is the Dakar the most open in recent years? -PM: Surely yes. It is the one where there are more drivers who can win.-CG: Yes. And drivers who are not used to being up there.-PM: Also, there are many cars lined up. BMW enters four cars, Toyota participates with eight, Ford competes with four, Dacia with three… There are twenty fast drivers with a car with the capacity to win and who will be in the fight. Do you feel more watched for being a woman or do you think that barrier Is it already down? -CG: It may be that I feel more watched because it is more unusual for a woman to pilot, but not in a bad way… It’s like if you go to watch a synchronized swimming competition and you see a boy, who tells you It draws more attention because it is not customary. But more and more girls are being seen in the world of motorsport, we are doing well and if on top of that there is a brand that gives you the opportunity to be in an official team… I thought about it the other day. There are only two official teams, Ford and Dacia, seven cars… There are less than ten drivers in the world who can access an official project and one of them is me. -Have you had to work harder for being a woman? -CG : Accessing an official team is just as hard for a man as it is for a woman. I was lucky to be in a project like the Junior Team, where you have a car, competitiveness and opportunities to do races and tests… Yes, it is true that you still have to assert yourself more because people don’t believe that you are fast and they think that you are only They have been taken for the fact of being a woman. That doubt always exists. Gutiérrez and Moreno’s car in the Dakar 2025 ABC-PM: If last year we didn’t win that question, many more people would have asked themselves internally. Why are they raising this girl? However, now everyone who had that doubt in their head, that Neanderthal doubt, now has to keep quiet because Cristina won the category and what she does is rise. It would have been logical to go up without winning, but on top of that he has won… – Is that Neanderthal mentality lurking? – CG: That’s always there. You lose people’s trust very quickly, but you have to be surrounded by worthy people and forget about the comments. If I had listened to everything that was said throughout my life I would not be here now. -PM: I think it’s something more outside of motorsport than inside. Last year we talked about it when we won. In the Junior Team project there were four drivers, all four are now in T1+ in official or semi-official projects and the only one who has won the Dakar has been her. They’re all very good, okay, but who has the title in Challenger? Cristina.-Do you see it as impossible to win the Dakar?-CG: Impossible, not because the Dakar is a super-open race. It is clear that there are pilots, with much more experience than me, but in the end you never know what can happen. I know I can move forward and learn a lot of things. We are working a lot inside and outside the car, with engineers and mechanics. If anyone is critical and demanding of me, it’s me. I know that we are going to evolve a lot. How much? Don’t know. If Loeb does not have any Dakar and has participated in seven or eight, it means that it is not only about being fast, but that many things have to happen for that to happen. -Imagine that the three of you, Nasser, Loeb and you, arrive at the last stage in a fist What would happen? Would there be team orders? -CG: You would have to ask here (laughs). Don’t know. I guess… the truth is that I don’t know… I haven’t even considered that situation. Maybe they give us freedom. -How is the relationship with Loeb and Nasser? -CG: Very good. Nasser has now taken Pablo to two Challenger races. This way you learn from another person and can give me information that is useful to me. I ask him how he does this and that… In the end the relationship is super good, we talk about everything, they are very open. They don’t hold anything back.-PM: In my case, they have been my idols for twenty years and now they advise me on what I should do.-CG: Yes, Pablo had a dog called Seb (laughs).-PM: Find you with your idol… It’s like a child who likes football and tomorrow he is having dinner with Cristiano Ronaldo and he tells him how they have to take a penalty. Well, we have that simile here now and we are lucky because they are open and inform us, help us, correct us… Both they and their co-pilots, who are among the best and who have been doing it for 20 years.-CG: Yes, we do the briefings all together, they don’t separate.-PM: We are very lucky, I don’t know if it will be like that in the rest of the teams. I feel total freedom and total openness on their part. – Do you feel that Dacia is the Dakar Dream Team? – CG: Man, when I see myself next to Loeb and Nasser, I think, ‘My goodness…’. The image of two legends and us who are just starting out is cool. You look at the Dakar with the desire that it continues to grow in generations. Five years ago I thought it was impossible to be on an official team. -How crazy is this for them to want to repeat it every year? -CG: You have to like it. With what we have gone through the first few times, now you have the best of the best that you can have in the Dakar. You have your motorhome… We started in tents, a car that broke down every day and you spent all night repairing… Now it’s another Dakar.-Did you suffer it before and now you enjoy it?-CG: Now you suffer it in a different way .-PM: You suffer from pressure. Now you suffer from fighting and before it was harder physically and mentally. But every year there is a short period of time when the Dakar ends when you think ‘I’m not coming back’ and it goes by quickly. -And on top of that, they don’t let you drive and you lurch…-PM: (laughs). You either like it or hate it. You come here and there are only two options: either you fall in love and keep coming back every year, or you come and think they are idiots and never come back. Because of the conditions, because of the little rest, because of working so much at night… – And on top of that, the pilots and co-pilots pay to come. They are somewhat masochistic…-CG: Yes. Sometimes you think that the camels who see us wandering around in the desert must think we are stupid, but well…-PM: If you like it, you end up coming. The year goes by super fast for me. – Have you already assimilated that you have won the Dakar? – CG: I’m not aware all the time. It’s hard for me. Sometimes you have to see people passing the checks to think: ‘damn, I beat all of these last year.’ When you achieve it you are less conscious. But, damn, sometimes I think: ‘wow, that’s cool’. -And how does the co-pilot, who never appears anywhere, experience it? -PM: Cristina values me, but the less I appear the better. I understand that there are people who handle it badly because it is a discipline in which both are necessary. We are at a point where the issue of women has been corrected, this will be corrected and the pilot and co-pilot will be highlighted. But it doesn’t bother me at all. What’s more, I prefer that no one knows me, but it is true that the work we do is important enough not to appear in many headlines.
#Cristina #GutiérrezPablo #Moreno #camels #desert #stupid
