Francisco López Contardo is set to get back into defending his World Rally-Raid Championship after missing the second leg for paternal leave.
The reigning W2RC T3 champion, López began 2023 by finishing fifth in class at the Dakar Rally, and he exited Dakar fourth in points (third-placed Guillaume de Mévius did not race for points). While a top five is always a solid performance, especially at such a challenging event, it was his worst finish since switching to four-wheeled vehicles in 2019 and the first time that he failed to podium overall. Much of this could be attributed to mechanical troubles that plagued his Can-Am XRS, which prompted him to submit a report to South Racing stressing the importance of vehicle reliability for the rest of the season.
Just three days after the rally, on 18 January, his wife María Jesús Aldunate gave birth to their son Tomás López Aldunate. He is their third child.
Although the Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge was not for over another month after Tomás was born, López elected to skip the race to continue raising his newborn. As it is just the second round of the five-race season, López only dropped a single spot in the T3 standings to fellow Red Bull driver Mitch Guthrie and is now fourth in points, seventy-two back of leader and Abu Dhabi winner Seth Quintero. The top five drivers—which also includes Quintero, Austin Jones, and Cristina Gutiérrez—are all Red Bull factory drivers; López and Gutiérrez race under the Red Bull Can-Am Factory Racing banner in a partnership with South Racing.
He confirmed his return for the final three legs at the Copec RallyMobil in Los Ángeles, Chile.
The third race of the season will be the Sonora Rally in Mexico on 25–28 April. The Desafío Ruta 40 in August takes place in Argentina, a neighbouring state to López’s native Chile and an event that he previously won on a bike in 2013. He finished runner-up in T3 at the 2022 Rallye du Maroc, which will host the finale in October.