After winning the 2022 Dakar Rally in the T4 category, Austin Jones made the jump to T3 for the 2023 race. It did not take long for him to get accustomed to his new environment as he kept fellow American Red Bull driver Seth Quintero at bay en route to the overall win.
Jones is the sixth racer to win an overall in at least two different classes and the second to achieve it in T4 and T3, which are both SSV/UTV classes but the latter are racing-specific while T4s are production models. Defending World Rally-Raid Champion Francisco López Contardo, who finished fifth, won the 2019 and 2021 T4 crowns followed by T3 in 2022. Other multi-class winners include Hubert Auriol (twice on Bikes, 1992 in Cars), Nani Roma (2004 on Bikes, 2014 in Cars), Josef Macháček (2009 on Quads, 2021 in T3), and Stéphane Peterhansel (six on Bikes, eight in Cars).
T3 and T4 are typically dominated by Red Bull, who has a new factory programme courtesy of Can-Am, and this remained the case in 2023 as the Red Bull Can-Am Factory Team and Red Bull Off-Road Junior Team won all but four stages. The American-only Junior Team, which consists of Jones and Quintero plus Mitch Guthrie in an MCE-5 T3M, combined for eight victories; although Guthrie led the way with five wins, mechanical problems during Stage #5 while being the overall leader eliminated him from contention and relegated him to twenty-third.
Red Bull drivers nearly occupied the entire top five, with former Red Bull Factory member (though still affiliated with the brand) Guillaume de Mévius spoiling the party by finishing third with a stage win. De Mévius had led much of the Rally since taking the top spot from Guthrie before vehicle trouble in Stage #11 enabled Jones to surpass him. The Junior Team drivers and de Mévius finished ahead of the Factory Team’s Cristina Gutiérrez and López.
After winning a Dakar record twelve stages in 2022, Quintero only claimed two in 2023, though factors like a disastrous Stage #4 in which he lost power steering and ran out of fuel twice hampered him. By the end, he finished runner-up to Jones by nearly an hour but is satisfied with second as “to finally drive through every stage of the Dakar feels amazing.” His twenty career T3 stage wins still have him in a league of his own as Guthrie holds the second most in the class with just five.
“A big shout out to all the team, all the work that goes on behind the scenes,” said Jones. “We couldn’t do it without the help of those guys. My navigator Gustavo (Gugelmin) did a great job. We’ve done it, two years in a row.”
The victory adds to an already impressive résumé for Jones, who won the final FIA World Cup for Cross-Country Rallies T4 title in 2021 before its reformation into the World Rally-Raid Championship. He also has a pair of Baja 1000 victories and the 2018 SCORE International Trophy Truck Spec championship.
X-raid Team also broke up the Red Bull show as João Ferreira and Ricardo Porém won Stages #8 and #10. The latter was an X-raid masterclass as they put three drivers on the podium in Porém, Ferreira, and Ignacio Casale. Porém fell shy of making the top ten in twelfth and Ferreira was taken out of the overall early, while the winless Casale was the highest finisher in tenth.
Hélder Rodrigues finished twenty-seventh in his first Dakar on four wheels, with his last attempt coming on a bike in 2017. Reigning Middle East Cup for Cross-Country Bajas champion Aliyyah Koloc‘s Dakar début ended in thirty-third after being unable to start the final leg, falling short of her main goal of finishing the Rally as she told The Checkered Flag prior to the race.
T3 overall top ten
| Finish | Number | Driver | Co-Driver | Team | Time | Margin |
| 1 | 303 | Austin Jones | Gustavo Gugelmin | Red Bull Off-Road Junior Team | 51:55:53 | Leader |
| 2 | 301 | Seth Quintero | Dennis Zenz | Red Bull Off-Road Junior Team | 52:47:58 | + 52:05 |
| 3 | 304 | Guillaume de Mévius* | François Cazalet | GRallyTeam | 53:31:35 | + 1:35:42 |
| 4 | 302 | Cristina Gutiérrez | Pablo Moreno Huete | Red Bull Can-Am Factory Team | 54:52:13 | + 2:56:20 |
| 5 | 300 | Francisco López Contardo | Juan Pablo Latrach | Red Bull Can-Am Factory Team | 54:55:41 | + 2:59:48 |
| 6 | 309 | Saleh Al-Saif* | João Pedro Vitoria | Black Hose Team | 56:10:01 | + 4:14:08 |
| 7 | 339 | Ebenhaezer Basson* | Bertus Leander Pienaar | GRallyTeam | 56:49:59 | + 4:54:06 |
| 8 | 340 | Hans Weijs* | Rudolf Meijer | Arcane Racing | 58:08:58 | + 6:13:05 |
| 9 | 305 | Santiago Navarro* | Adrien Metge | FN Speed Team | 58:30:40 | + 6:34:47 |
| 10 | 322 | Ignacio Casale* | Álvaro Leon | X-raid Team | 58:49:2 | + 6:53:27 |
T3 stage winners
| Stage | Number | Driver | Team | Time |
| Prologue | 302 | Cristina Gutiérrez | Red Bull Can-Am Factory Team | 8:49 |
| Stage #1 | 300 | Francisco López Contardo | Red Bull Can-Am Factory Team | 3:57:40 |
| Stage #2 | 314 | Mitch Guthrie | Red Bull Off-Road Junior Team | 5:38:31 |
| Stage #3 | 303 | Austin Jones | Red Bull Off-Road Junior Team | 4:05:03 |
| Stage #4 | 314 | Mitch Guthrie | Red Bull Off-Road Junior Team | 5:01:55 |
| Stage #5 | 301 | Seth Quintero | Red Bull Off-Road Junior Team | 4:59:55 |
| Stage #6 | 304 | Guillaume de Mevius* | GRallyTeam | 3:39:43 |
| Stage #7 | 314 | Mitch Guthrie | Red Bull Off-Road Junior Team | 3:39:37 |
| Stage #8 | 337 | João Ferreira | X-raid Team | 4:11:36 |
| Stage #9 | 329 | David Zille | South Racing Can-Am | 3:38:00 |
| Stage #10 | 301 | Seth Quintero | Red Bull Off-Road Junior Team | 1:55:17 |
| Stage #11 | 328 | Ricardo Porém | X-raid Team | 3:19:11 |
| Stage #12 | 314 | Mitch Guthrie | Red Bull Off-Road Junior Team | 2:17:11 |
| Stage #13 | 314 | Mitch Guthrie | Red Bull Off-Road Junior Team | 2:41:08 |
| Stage #14 | 302 | Cristina Gutiérrez | Red Bull Can-Am Factory Team | 1:18:01 |
Overall winners
| Class | Number | Competitor | Team | Time |
| T1 | 200 | Nasser Al-Attiyah | Toyota Gazoo Racing | 45:03:15 |
| T2 | 250 | Ronald Basso* | Team Land Cruiser Toyota Auto Body | 107:39:42 |
| T3 | 303 | Austin Jones | Red Bull Off-Road Junior Team | 51:55:53 |
| T4 | 428 | Eryk Goczał | EnergyLandia Rally Team | 53:10:14 |
| T5 | 502 | Janus van Kasteren | Boss Machinery Team de Rooy IVECO | 54:03:33 |
| RallyGP | 47 | Kevin Benavides | Red Bull KTM Factory Racing | 44:27:20 |
| Rally2 | 17 | Romain Dumontier | Team Dumontier Racing | 47:03:58 |
| Malle Moto | 40 | Charan Moore* | HT Rally Raid Husqvarna Racing | 52:24:42 |
| Quad | 151 | Alexandre Giroud* | Drag’on Rally Team | 56:44:30 |
| Classic | 778 | Juan Morera* | Toyota Classic | 428 points |
