Student-run Ahuja Racing plans Dakar Rally entry

Fidel Castillo Ruiz hopes to make his Dakar Rally début in 2024, and will do so with a student-run effort. Last Tuesday, he revealed the Ahúja Racing project, which consists almost entirely of university students. Castillo will race a Can-Am Maverick X3 in the T4 category with Marc Solà Terradellas as co-driver.

The team débuted at the Spanish Cross-Country Rally Championship (CERTT, Campeonato Español de Rallies Todo Terreno) season-opening Rally TT Jaen Mar de Olivos days after their reveal. Castillo finished third overall and won the T4 class, finishing just fifty-one seconds behind overall winner José Henrique Dinis Alvo Silva. Besides contesting the rest of the CERTT schedule, Ahúja also plans to compete in select FIA European Cup for Cross-Country Bajas events and the World Rally-Raid Championship‘s Rallye du Maroc.

Most of the students attend the Elías Ahúja Residence Hall (Colegio Mayor Universitario Elías Ahúja), an all-male residential college attached to the Complutense University of Madrid in Madrid, Spain. The school’s namesake, and by extension the team’s, Elías Ahúja was a philanthropist in the early 20th century who assisted in developing social services and charity efforts in Spain.

“I have been in this project since its inception, and seeing the evolution that it is having and the new leap that we are going to hit, fills me with pride and emotion,” said Castillo. “Being able to have lived this experience with all my loved ones is priceless. […]

“Our goal is clear: get to the Dakar, and rest assured that we will do our best.”

The 21-year-old Castillo hails from an endurance racing background, finishing fifth in the 2022 Italian GT Championship’s Endurance GT Cup Am class with a win at Autodromo Vallelunga Piero Taruffi, while also notching two podiums in Sprint GT Cup Am. To help with his transition to off-road, Solà arrives after recently contesting the 2023 Dakar Rally with Carlos Checa in the T1 class. Solà has competed at Dakar since 2016, originally as a Bike rider before becoming a navigator in 2020.

The 2023 Dakar Rally saw another student-featured programme when engineering majors from Nebrija University, also located in Madrid, designed the Sodicars Racing vehicle that Manolo Plaza raced.