As petite as she is persevering and methodical, Cristina Gutiérrez, a 32-year-old from Burgos, has gotten her way: before making the leap to the absolute car category, embarking on the ambitious Dacia 2025 project together with her godfather Sébastien Loeb and Nasser Al Attiyah has taken the absolute victory in Challenger, the old T3 category of light vehicles.
The driver and dentist, based in Barcelona, has made history: since 2001, 23 years ago, a woman has not been able to win the Dakar rally in one of its categories. Her idol and role model Jutta Kleinschmidt was the last to succeed.
In 2017, Cristina Gutiérrez was the first Spanish driver to complete the test in the car category. She now she has surpassed herself.
Cristina Gutiérrez, Loeb's little right eye, who protected her since he met her in 2020 at the Andalucía Rally, had him between her eyebrows: "I would love to win the category. I never set surreal goals, it will be my fourth year in T3 and I have always seen myself at the top, I know what I can do and that I have a chance to win... if the Dakar respects you...", he told La Vanguardia days before leaving for Saudi Arabia.
And the Dakar 2024 respected it, unlike the previous year, when it had a major scare when it ran aground in the mud of a dry river that suddenly rose due to a waterspout.
Gutiérrez reached the last stage in second position, with almost no chance of winning. He was 25 minutes behind American Mitchell Guthrie (Taurus). However, a failure of the leader gave him his life. Gutrhie broke the turbo of his vehicle and had to be stopped for more than 23 minutes, and later, due to another stop due to a breakdown, he lost a few more minutes that were decisive for the Spanish woman's victory.
“I'm racing almost all year round, I'm out for about 200 days," Gutiérrez explained to this newspaper. The woman from Burgos has been able to have excellent form and good pace thanks to her continuous activity during the season: she ran the 5 rounds of the World Rally Championship. raids and the other five from Extreme E in the team he forms with Sébastien Loeb.
But, in addition to his schedule full of races and tests, Gutiérrez bases his success on emotional strength. "I am a very sensitive person and external things affect me a lot. My circle helps me to be good with myself. I feel very identified with what Marc Márquez said, that he was in his best personal moment and that would help him return to his best sporting moment".
One of Cristina's secrets is her preparation, for a year and a half, practicing apnea, the sports specialty consisting of the voluntary suspension of breathing in water, as she explained to La Vanguardia.
"Apnea helps me a lot, I practice it in the pool. I usually do it in the sea below 20 meters and at most I spent 3 and a half minutes in the pool, freediving. It is achieved by training, lowering the heart rate, with mental control, with a prior relaxation exercise "That helps a lot to control your mind."
According to Gutiérrez, apnea helps her control "negative thoughts that come to our heads, many times they upset us and make us lose our horizon. This helps a lot in the race because if ideas come to you you can lose concentration. For us it is important to stay focused. and concentration for many hours, and avoiding thoughts is very good because they take your concentration off.
