2023 Desafio Ruta 40: Mitch Guthrie assumes T3 points lead with second straight win

A week before heading to Argentina for the Desafío Ruta 40, Mitch Guthrie finished second to Red Bull team-mate Seth Quintero among UTVs at the Vegas to Reno. Two weeks after that night in Nevada, Guthrie was the one atop a UTV podium.

Trading in his V2R Polaris for his World Rally-Raid Championship MCE-5 T3M, Guthrie scored two stage wins in the Desafío Ruta 40‘s T3 category but his reliability and consistency proved key to the overall victory. With the exception of a seventh in Stage #5 after racing conservatively, he finished on the podium in each of the first four legs and won the first and third, allowing him to retain the overall lead every day.

The win is Guthrie’s second straight after claiming the Sonora Rally in April.

“It was a great rally,” Guthrie stated. “We had our ups and downs for sure, but we kept it together all the way. We’re stoked with the overall win, that’s two in a row now. It was my first time racing here so we were learning a lot as we went.”

Mattias Ekström and Quintero provided the biggest challenges to Guthrie’s reign, the former also winning the Prologue and Stage #2, but were set back by mechanical failures. Ekström was knocked out of overall contention just a day after his stage win with a broken differential, while Quintero’s intercooler failed the following stage. Both still reached the finish, albeit in tenth and eleventh.

Their issues promoted Cristina Gutiérrez to second overall entering the final stage, though she trailed Guthrie by over twenty-two minutes. Gutiérrez was only able to slice six minutes from the margin.

Despite recording a podium finish in third, Austin Jones lost the T3 points lead to Guthrie. After trailing Jones by twenty points entering Argentina, Guthrie is now ahead by three while Quintero falls from second to third with nine points separating him and the new leader. Behind the Americans, Gutiérrez’s runner-up breaks a tie for fourth with Red Bull ally Francisco Lopéz Contardo.

João Ferreira won Stage #4, but was already in a hole after a gearbox problem plagued his Stage #1. A broken clutch ended his race on the last day.

Vehicle trouble also ruined an otherwise impressive T3 début for Nicolás Cavigliasso. The T4 regular and 2019 Dakar Rally quad champion, racing an MCE-5 car like Guthrie, finished second to Ekström in Stage #2 after leading at the final checkpoint only to be overtaken in the closing run. Cavigliasso was also leading Stage #4 before a mechanical issue dropped him to eighth.

T3 overall results

Finish	Overall Finish	Number	Driver	Co-Driver	Team	Time	Margin
1	5	302	Mitch Guthrie	Kellon Walch	Red Bull Off-Road Junior Team	16:22:31	Leader
2	6	303	Cristina Gutiérrez	Pablo Moreno Huete	Red Bull Can-Am Factory Racing	16:38:49	+ 16:18
3	7	300	Austin Jones	Gustavo Gugelmin	Red Bull Off-Road Junior Team	16:50:14	+ 27:43
4	8	304	Francisco Lopéz Contardo	Bruno Jacomy	Red BulL Can-Am Factory Racing	16:56:18	+ 33:47
5	9	312	Hernán Garcés*	Juan Pablo Latrach	South Racing Can-Am	17:27:06	+ 1:04:35
6	11	310	Juan Carlos Cerda*	Álvaro León	Terracop Rally	18:16:50	+ 1:54:19
7	13	309	Nicolás Cavigliasso*	Valeria Pertegarini	Wevers Sport	19:42:39	+ 3:20:08
8	15	305	João Ferreira	Manuel Porem	X-raid Team	33:25:49	+ 17:03:18
9	16	307	Claude Fournier	Szymon Gospodarczyk	BBR Motorsport	35:13:33	+ 18:51:02
10	18	306	Mattias Ekström	Emil Bergkvist	South Racing Can-Am	36:54:44	+ 20:32:13
11	19	301	Seth Quintero	Dennis Zenz	Red Bull Off-Road Junior Team	37:43:18	+ 21:20:47
12	20	308	David Zille	Sebastian Cesana	South Racing Can-Am	37:49:24	+ 21:26:53
13	22	313	Oscar Santos Peralta*	Loutival Roldan	Santos Racing	39:49:09	+ 23:26:38
14	24	311	Gabriel Rodríguez*	Santiago de la Vega	Wevers Sport	43:30:58	+ 27:08:27

* – Not competing in World Rally-Raid Championship

T3 stage winners

Stage	Driver	Time
Prologue	Mattias Ekström	6:54
Stage #1	Mitch Guthrie	3:12:31
Stage #2	Mattias Ekström	3:45:39
Stage #3	Mitch Guthrie	3:13:12
Stage #4	João Ferreira	3:12:23
Stage #5	Mattias Ekström	2:42:21

Overall winners

Class	Number	Competitor	Team	Time
T1	200	Nasser Al-Attiyah	Toyota Gazoo Racing	15:10:03
T3	302	Mitch Guthrie	Red Bull Off-Road Junior Team	16:22:31
T4	403	Gustavo Gallego*	South Racing Can-Am	18:34:37
RallyGP	68	Tosha Schareina*	Honda Team	15:58:46
Rally2	21	Bradley Cox	BAS World KTM Racing Team	17:01:01
Rally3	122	Ardit Kurtaj	Xraids Experience	23:15:45
Quad	152	Manuel Andújar	7240 Team	19:24:30
Open Auto	650	Blas Zapag*	Copetrol Rally	23:06:34
Open T3	670	Jeremías Gonzalez Ferioli*	Ferioli Racing Team	17:34:31
Open T4	678	Juan Jose Semino*	Xcorpion Rally Racing	20:59:00
Open Moto	608	Rodrigo de Abreu Sallum*	MED Racing Team	22:36:24
Open Quad	623	Santiago Rostan*	Pampa Rental Rally Team	25:28:33

W2RC T3 standings

Drivers’ standings

Rank	Driver	Points	Margin
1	Mitch Guthrie	174	Leader
2	Austin Jones	171	– 3
3	Seth Quintero	165	– 9
4	Cristina Gutiérrez	110	– 64
5	Francisco Lopéz Contardo	104	– 70
6	João Ferreira	97	– 77
7	Mattias Ekström	77	– 97
8	Claude Fournier	55	– 119
9	David Zille	54	– 120
10	Jean-Luc Ceccaldi	41	– 133
11	Aliyyah Koloc	34	– 140
12	Hélder Rogrigues	22	– 152
13	Annett Quandt	20	– 154
14	Dania Akeel	15	– 159
15	Erik van Loon	13	– 161
	Fernando Alvarez	0	– 174

Co-drivers’ standings

Some co-drivers have worked with drivers in other categories. Those do not count for this championship nor are they mentioned below.

Rank	Co-Driver	Driver	Points	Margin
1	Kellon Walch	Mitch Guthrie	174	Leader
2	Gustavo Gugelmin	Austin Jones	171	– 3
3	Dennis Zenz	Seth Quintero	165	– 9
4	Pablo Moreno Huete	Cristina Gutiérrez	110	– 64
5	Juan Pablo Latrach	Francisco López Contardo	78	– 96
6	Emil Bergkvist	Mattias Ekström	77	– 97
7	Filipe Palmeiro	João Ferreira	74	– 100
8	Sebastian Cesana	David Zille	54	– 120
9	Cédric Duplé	Jean-Luc Ceccaldi	50	– 124
10	Szymon Gospodarczyk	Claude Fournier	35	– 139
11	Stéphane Duple	Aliyyah Koloc	34	– 140
12	Bruno Jacomy	Hernán Garcés	26	– 148
13	Manuel Porem	João Ferreira	23	– 151
14	Gonçalo Reis	Hélder Rodrigues	22	– 152
15	Arnold Brucy	Claude Fournier	20	– 154
16	Sergio Lafuente	Dania Akeel, Diego Martinez	15	– 159
17	Sébastien Delaunay	Erik van Loon	13	– 161
18	Annie Seel	Annett Quandt	11	– 163
19	Lisette Bakker	Annett Quandt	9	– 165
	Xavier Panseri	Fernando Álvarez Castellano	0	– 174