Cristina Gutiérrez | Rally Driver | Motorsport

Cristina Gutiérrez is not your ordinary dentist.

That’s because when she’s not tending to all manner of people’s dentistry needs, Cristina is forging an impressive path through the motorsport world, becoming one of the most skilled and underrated drivers of her era – and it feels like she’s only just getting started.

Here’s why.

Coming from a family who loved motorsport, Cristina first began riding motorbikes when she was just four years old. The Spaniard then made her racing debut back in 2011 when she participated in the All-Terrain Spanish Rally Championships. The fact that this was her first high-profile race didn’t shake her as she ended up finishing first in the female category. This wasn’t a one off as she repeated this for the next five years, ending her time in the series by finishing in P2 overall in the mixed gender category. It had proved to be an important learning experience for her but now it was time for a new challenge and so, in 2016, Cristina took on the Sealine Cross-Country Rally in Qatar.

Apparently however, this was not enough of a challenge for her as she also finished this race in first place in the female category on her first attempt. There was definitely an individual brimming with potential here.

This meant only one thing for 2017 – Dakar.

Quite possibly the ultimate challenge in motorsport, success comes in a variety of forms here. In her Dakar debut, Cristina completed the arduously long off-road classic and in doing so, became the first woman from Spain to ever finish the historic event. Remarkably, in her entire Dakar career to date, she’s only DNFd once. She would go on to finish the next three Dakar before then making history again in 2021 by becoming only the second woman in history to win a stage of the legendary event after Jutta Kleinschmidt.

This quiet but efficient hard work would pay off as when the all-electric off-road racing series Extreme E was founded, Cristina was signed up to race for X44 – the team owned by none other than Seven-Time Formula One World Champion, Lewis Hamilton. Here she would be partnered by motorsport legend Sébastien Loeb with the pair finishing on the podium in their debut race in Saudi Arabia.

2021 continued to be a mighty year for the Spainard as she claimed overall victory in the T3 Class at Rally Andalucia, presenting the Red Bull Off-Road Junior Team with their first ever win. She would then end the year by becoming the first woman to win the FIA World Cup for Cross Country Rallies as well as finishing in P2 in the Extreme E Championship –and winning the final race of the year with the fastest super sector in the process. They only lost out on the title due to countback as both X44 and RXR were equal on points. Talk about slim margins.

2022 saw Cristina return to the Dakar once more and this time, she rewrote the rulebook yet again by finishing in third place overall in the T3 category. This wasn’t just an improvement – it was a statement of intent about what she wanted, where she planned to go next and how she was going to get there. She also went back with a vengeance for a second bite of the apple in Extreme E, this time finishing on the podium in all but one round and winning the penultimate race of the season in Chile before securing the 2022 Championship, again partnered by Mr Loeb. With immense pressure going into the final race of that season, Gutiérrez didn’t let it get to her and in doing so, did everything she needed to in order to make sure that she and the team got their hands on their Championship. It was thrilling to watch and really felt like an important milestone for her, especially after how she’d begun the year with a Podium finish at the Dakar.

In 2023’s Dakar, problems plagued Cristina during the first week of the rally, despite winning the prologue, and so she was out of contention to fight for P1. However, she managed an impressive comeback drive, finishing in P4 in her category with another stage win on the final day – not something to be sniffed at lightly and a testament to her character, in terms of endurance and tenacity. Extreme E would also prove to be a character-building championship as bad luck mid-way through the season led her and X44 to finish down near the back of the grid on several occasions. However, she and the team were able to win two races, in Scotland and Italy, before claiming back-to-back podiums at the season finale in Chile, taking P4 in the Championship.

Everything up until this point would prove to have been worth it however when it came to the Dakar in 2024 – described as one of the toughest versions of this particular event in recent times. And that’s saying something. For so long, it looked like victory in the Dakar would elude her as Mitch Guthrie and team ahead of her didn’t put a foot wrong, making many think she would have to settle for P2. But anything can happen in the Dakar – and it usually does. This time, it couldn’t have been left any later. On the very final day of racing, the overall leaders suffered from issues and suddenly, the game was afoot once again. Cristina finished the final stage in third place, but this was enough for her to clinch the overall win – the second time in history that a woman has won the Dakar. Having also won another stage of the event in 2024, she took her tally up to four. It cannot be underestimated how massive this moment was for Cristina – and for motorsport.

Moreover, with X44 exiting Extreme E in 2024, many wondered what would be happening to Cristina and her place in the Championship. We needn’t have feared though because McLaren wasted no time in signing her up to race for them, becoming only the third female driver in their history after Emma Gilmour and Bianca Bustamante. She partnered Mattias Ekström and immediately, the pair have proven to be an effective combination. Over the course of the first two rounds of the Extreme E 2024 Season, they finished P2 in Round 1 and took victory in the Redemption Race for Round 2, having missed out on the Grand Finale by the slimmest of margins.

While having shown her metal many times before over the previous three seasons in Extreme E, Gutiérrez appeared to a woman possessed over this weekend of racing as she threw everything she had at maximising her positions over the course of the races. This was most prominent in the Grand Final of Round 1, where, after overtaking Åhlin-Kottulinsky for the lead, the Swede came back at her – the pair crossing the line just 0.016 seconds apart! It was brilliant to see these two Extreme E Champions going at it so fiercely with one another. McLaren will definitely be very happy that they were able to snap her up before someone else on the grid.

While we’ll have to wait and see what the rest of 2024 has in store for Cristina, 2025 will see her enter the car category for the Dakar for the first time as she attempts once again to take on the race, beat it – and all of those around her who are determined to win.

What all of this tells us though is that Cristina Gutiérrez was very much born to race. She’s not only overcome the barriers to entry into motorsport that many women face but she’s also consistently shown that she has not only earnt her spot on whichever grid she’s on but that she’s able to go up against the best of them and defeat them. What helps all of this too is that she’s a very grounded, easily approachable and friendly person.

While she becomes incredibly competitive in the car as well as extremely focused when studying race replays and data that will help her improve, when she’s out of that mindset, you can see her having fun and getting along with everyone and truly appreciating the position that she’s in.

Her persistence over her career and quiet but steady progress in those early years is also a reminder to never give up and showcases her as a role model for those wanting to get into racing themselves. In the future, it would be cool to see her racing in series such as Nitrocross – and I certainly hope she remains on the grid next year for when Extreme E evolves into Extreme H so that she can create even more history there.

So, while it may be hard to predict where she’ll go next and what she’ll achieve, there’s no denying that Cristina Gutiérrez is indeed, a trailblazer.

Author: Thiemo Albers-Daly