2023 Dakar Rally: Austin Jones leads American Red Bull 1–2 in T3

After winning the 2022 Dakar Rally in the T4 category, Austin Jones made the jump to T3 for the 2023 race. It did not take long for him to get accustomed to his new environment as he kept fellow American Red Bull driver Seth Quintero at bay en route to the overall win.

Jones is the sixth racer to win an overall in at least two different classes and the second to achieve it in T4 and T3, which are both SSV/UTV classes but the latter are racing-specific while T4s are production models. Defending World Rally-Raid Champion Francisco López Contardo, who finished fifth, won the 2019 and 2021 T4 crowns followed by T3 in 2022. Other multi-class winners include Hubert Auriol (twice on Bikes, 1992 in Cars), Nani Roma (2004 on Bikes, 2014 in Cars), Josef Macháček (2009 on Quads, 2021 in T3), and Stéphane Peterhansel (six on Bikes, eight in Cars).

T3 and T4 are typically dominated by Red Bull, who has a new factory programme courtesy of Can-Am, and this remained the case in 2023 as the Red Bull Can-Am Factory Team and Red Bull Off-Road Junior Team won all but four stages. The American-only Junior Team, which consists of Jones and Quintero plus Mitch Guthrie in an MCE-5 T3M, combined for eight victories; although Guthrie led the way with five wins, mechanical problems during Stage #5 while being the overall leader eliminated him from contention and relegated him to twenty-third.

Red Bull drivers nearly occupied the entire top five, with former Red Bull Factory member (though still affiliated with the brand) Guillaume de Mévius spoiling the party by finishing third with a stage win. De Mévius had led much of the Rally since taking the top spot from Guthrie before vehicle trouble in Stage #11 enabled Jones to surpass him. The Junior Team drivers and de Mévius finished ahead of the Factory Team’s Cristina Gutiérrez and López.

After winning a Dakar record twelve stages in 2022, Quintero only claimed two in 2023, though factors like a disastrous Stage #4 in which he lost power steering and ran out of fuel twice hampered him. By the end, he finished runner-up to Jones by nearly an hour but is satisfied with second as “to finally drive through every stage of the Dakar feels amazing.” His twenty career T3 stage wins still have him in a league of his own as Guthrie holds the second most in the class with just five.

“A big shout out to all the team, all the work that goes on behind the scenes,” said Jones. “We couldn’t do it without the help of those guys. My navigator Gustavo (Gugelmin) did a great job. We’ve done it, two years in a row.”

The victory adds to an already impressive résumé for Jones, who won the final FIA World Cup for Cross-Country Rallies T4 title in 2021 before its reformation into the World Rally-Raid Championship. He also has a pair of Baja 1000 victories and the 2018 SCORE International Trophy Truck Spec championship.

X-raid Team also broke up the Red Bull show as João Ferreira and Ricardo Porém won Stages #8 and #10. The latter was an X-raid masterclass as they put three drivers on the podium in Porém, Ferreira, and Ignacio Casale. Porém fell shy of making the top ten in twelfth and Ferreira was taken out of the overall early, while the winless Casale was the highest finisher in tenth.

Hélder Rodrigues finished twenty-seventh in his first Dakar on four wheels, with his last attempt coming on a bike in 2017. Reigning Middle East Cup for Cross-Country Bajas champion Aliyyah Koloc‘s Dakar début ended in thirty-third after being unable to start the final leg, falling short of her main goal of finishing the Rally as she told The Checkered Flag prior to the race.

T3 overall top ten

Finish	Number	Driver	Co-Driver	Team	Time	Margin
1	303	Austin Jones	Gustavo Gugelmin	Red Bull Off-Road Junior Team	51:55:53	Leader
2	301	Seth Quintero	Dennis Zenz	Red Bull Off-Road Junior Team	52:47:58	+ 52:05
3	304	Guillaume de Mévius*	François Cazalet	GRallyTeam	53:31:35	+ 1:35:42
4	302	Cristina Gutiérrez	Pablo Moreno Huete	Red Bull Can-Am Factory Team	54:52:13	+ 2:56:20
5	300	Francisco López Contardo	Juan Pablo Latrach	Red Bull Can-Am Factory Team	54:55:41	+ 2:59:48
6	309	Saleh Al-Saif*	João Pedro Vitoria	Black Hose Team	56:10:01	+ 4:14:08
7	339	Ebenhaezer Basson*	Bertus Leander Pienaar	GRallyTeam	56:49:59	+ 4:54:06
8	340	Hans Weijs*	Rudolf Meijer	Arcane Racing	58:08:58	+ 6:13:05
9	305	Santiago Navarro*	Adrien Metge	FN Speed Team	58:30:40	+ 6:34:47
10	322	Ignacio Casale*	Álvaro Leon	X-raid Team	58:49:2	+ 6:53:27

* – Not competing in World Rally-Raid Championship

T3 stage winners

Stage	Number	Competitor	Team	Time
Prologue	302	Cristina Gutiérrez	Red Bull Can-Am Factory Team	8:49
Stage #1	300	Francisco López Contardo	Red Bull Can-Am Factory Team	3:57:40
Stage #2	314	Mitch Guthrie	Red Bull Off-Road Junior Team	5:38:31
Stage #3	303	Austin Jones	Red Bull Off-Road Junior Team	4:05:03
Stage #4	314	Mitch Guthrie	Red Bull Off-Road Junior Team	5:01:55
Stage #5	301	Seth Quintero	Red Bull Off-Road Junior Team	4:59:55
Stage #6	304	Guillaume de Mevius*	GRallyTeam	3:39:43
Stage #7	314	Mitch Guthrie	Red Bull Off-Road Junior Team	3:39:37
Stage #8	337	João Ferreira	X-raid Team	4:11:36
Stage #9	329	David Zille	South Racing Can-Am	3:38:00
Stage #10	301	Seth Quintero	Red Bull Off-Road Junior Team	1:55:17
Stage #11	328	Ricardo Porém	X-raid Team	3:19:11
Stage #12	314	Mitch Guthrie	Red Bull Off-Road Junior Team	2:17:11
Stage #13	314	Mitch Guthrie	Red Bull Off-Road Junior Team	2:41:08
Stage #14	302	Cristina Gutiérrez	Red Bull Can-Am Factory Team	1:18:01

Overall winners

Class	Number	Competitor	Team	Time
T1	200	Nasser Al-Attiyah	Toyota Gazoo Racing	45:03:15
T2	250	Ronald Basso*	Team Land Cruiser Toyota Auto Body	107:39:42
T3	303	Austin Jones	Red Bull Off-Road Junior Team	51:55:53
T4	428	Eryk Goczał	EnergyLandia Rally Team	53:10:14
T5	502	Janus van Kasteren	Boss Machinery Team de Rooy IVECO	54:03:33
RallyGP	47	Kevin Benavides	Red Bull KTM Factory Racing	44:27:20
Rally2	17	Romain Dumontier	Team Dumontier Racing	47:03:58
Malle Moto	40	Charan Moore*	HT Rally Raid Husqvarna Racing	52:24:42
Quad	151	Alexandre Giroud*	Drag’on Rally Team	56:44:30
Classic	778	Juan Morera*	Toyota Classic	428 points