This weekend, Carlos Checa Carrera and Laia Sanz are competing against each other in the FIA World Rallycross Championship RX2e round at Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya. In January, however, the Spaniards will join forces with Óscar Fuertes at Astara Team to attempt the 2023 Dakar Rally.
The 2011 Superbike World Champion and a MotoGP veteran, Checa made his début at Dakar in 2022 with MD Rallye Sport. While his performance was mainly in the twenties for the T1 category, a string of early retirements including a Stage #3 rollover relegated him to an overall finish of sixty-sixth.
While Checa is more known for his pavement racing, Sanz has extensive experience in off-road and rally raid. Since her first Dakar start in 2011 through 2021, she was one of the top riders in the Bikes, including a ninth-place run in 2015 and consistently being the highest finishing woman. Sanz switched to four wheels for 2022 and raced a Mini Cooper for X-raid Team, notching a general classification of twenty-third.
Fuertes finished thirty-fourth overall in T1 at the 2022 Rally. It was his fourth attempt at the race after running the 2018 through 2020 editions, notching a best finish of twenty-fourth in 2020. His maiden start saw him as the second-best finisher of the newcomers in thirty-second. In the 1990s, Fuertes was a member of the Carlos Sainz Junior Team, a rally academy whose head is currently Sanz’s partner in Extreme E.
Astara Team is the racing arm of Astara, a mobility company formerly known as Bergé Auto that distributes cars in Europe and Latin America. The team has received support from the city of Madrid along with Nebrija University, the latter of whom is working with Sodicars to design their 2023 Dakar challenger.
Checa and Sanz replace Jesús Calleja, who retired from the 2022 race after crashing in Stage #5, as Fuertes’ team-mate.
While details of Astara’s 2023 entry will be revealed on 16 November, it has been announced that their car will run on synthetic gasoline.
