Baja 1000 champion Francisco Arredondo joins Puma Energy Dakar triumvirate

Puma Energy Rally Team, off-road racing arm of the multinational Puma Energy oil company, will once again field a trio of racers at the Dakar Rally in 2023. While Andrea Lafarjá and Juan Manuel “Pato” Silva return to respectively compete in the Car and SSV categories, the team’s Bike entry will be filled by Dakar veteran and former SCORE International champion Francisco Arredondo. The lineup was announced Wednesday at a Puma Energy gas station in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Arredondo has thirteen career starts in the Dakar Rally, making an annual run from 2004 to 2016 before taking a three-year hiatus. Riding for DUUST Rally Team, he finished seventy-second overall. His best finish came in 2011 of thirty-seventh. For the 2023 Rally, he will ride a KTM 450 Rally bike prepared by BAS DAKAR.

Much of the Guatemalan’s rally raid success comes in North America, where he won the 2016 SCORE World Desert Championship’s Pro Moto Ironman class. The following year, he secured the Pro Moto Unlimited title as well as the World Desert Championship for bikes overall, aided by topping his class in three of four races and all Bikes at the legendary Baja 1000. For the 2020 Baja 1000, Arredondo made a virtually seamless switch to four wheels by taking the Pro UTV NA division victory.

“We are proud to bring the only representative of Central America to Dakar 2023,” said Puma Energy Guatemala marketing manager Andrea Rayo. “Guatemala is a winning country and is distinguished by having authors of great success stories.”

Lafarjá was the lone Paraguayan in the 2022 Dakar Rally field, her second attempt at the race after débuting with a fiftieth in 2019. She would finish sixty-fifth overall. After driving a Borgward BX7 Evo in 2022, she moves to a Toyota Hilux T1 supplied by Overdrive Racing.

A two-time Argentinian touring car champion, Silva serves as general manager for Puma Energy’s TC2000 Championship programme. He has a decade of Dakar experience dating back to 2011, which included running the 2020 and 2021 races in the SSV class before driving a Truck in the most recent edition. However, his MAN TGA retired after eleven stages, which led to him supporting Lafarjá for the final leg. His best career Dakar performance is fifteenth in 2020. Puma Energy acquired a Can-Am Maverick X3 from FN Speed Team for Silva.

The 2023 Dakar Rally will take place from 31 December 2022 to 15 January 2023.

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