The T3 class is generally the last stepping stone before reaching the top level of rally raid in T1. To this end, the World Rally-Raid Championship has organised a special test session in which five T3 drivers will get to drive T1+ vehicles.
Dubbed the W2RC Next Gen Tryouts, the test is scheduled for Thursday at the conclusion of the Rallye du Maroc and will take place on a seventeen-kilometre loop outside the bivouac in Merzouga, Morocco. Dania Akeel, Rokas Baciuška, Mitch Guthrie, Cristina Gutiérrez, and Seth Quintero will take part; all five are Red Bull-sponsored athletes.
Save for BAIC ORV, every T1+ manufacturer will provide a car for them to drive with Toyota being the lone company supplying two. Toyota Gazoo Racing and Overdrive Racing will respectively bring the #200 and #201 Hiluxes driven by Nasser Al-Attiyah and Yazeed Al-Rajhi; the former won the 2022 and 2023 driver’s and manufacturer’s championships. Sébastien Loeb‘s #203 Prodrive Hunter prepared by Bahrain Raid Xtreme will be available, as will M-Sport‘s #211 Ford Ranger piloted by Nani Roma and the #212 Mini John Cooper Works Rally Plus of X-raid Team and Krzysztof Hołowczyc. Gutiérrez’s #303 Can-Am Maverick X3 T3 is also set to take part in the test.
To make the test happen, all six vehicles were given approval by the FIA to undergo repairs shortly after the Rallye du Maroc ends before being heading out for the afternoon, on the terms that the drivers taking part have a signed waiver from the organiser and wear the proper safety equipment. The cars are also required to return to parc fermé once the tryout is complete.
“As an exceptional case and for promotional reasons (in order to improve the promotion of the FIA W2RC, it is allowed to give the opportunity for the young drivers to test T1+ cars on a 20km loop near the Merzouga bivouac,” explained the FIA stewards. “Since the promotional activity will be after the end of Stage 5 it will have no affect to all other competitors.”
Guthrie and Quintero entered the Rallye du Maroc first and third in the T3 standings, separated by just nine points with their Red Bull Off-Road Junior Team colleague Austin Jones sandwiched in between. While Jones is not involved in the test, he told The Checkered Flag on Sunday that he would be open to trying T1 in the future if the opportunity presents itself. Quintero finished second in the 2022 T3 points battle while he won his class at the Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge in March, whereas Guthrie notched a pair of victories at the Sonora Rally and Desafío Ruta 40.
Gutiérrez was the final T3 champion of the FIA World Cup for Cross-Country Rallies in 2021, the predecessor to the W2RC. She placed third in 2022 and is currently fourth in the T3 standings behind the Americans.
Baciuška and Gutiérrez are part of Red Bull Can-Am Factory Racing, the international counterpart to the Junior Team. The former has dominated the T4 class for production side-by-side vehicles, winning the 2022 title and never finishing worse than second across the first three rounds of 2023. He was so far ahead in the T4 standings that he had already clinched the championship prior to the DR 40, prompting him to skip the round before moving up to T3 for Morocco.
While T3 will be his focus for 2024, Baciuška made his T1+ début in July at the Baja España Aragón. Racing a Hilux from Overdrive, he finished ninth overall but would have been third if not for penalties.
Akeel typically only runs the Middle Eastern W2RC rounds like the Dakar Rally and Abu Dhabi, with her rally raid action mainly coming in the FIA World Cup for Cross-Country Bajas. She won the T3 World Cup in 2021 before entering the 2022 Dakar Rally, which takes place in her home country of Saudi Arabia, and finished eighth in her maiden start. While she normally drives a Can-Am for South Racing, she switched to an MCE-5 Taurus T3 Max prepared by Wevers Sport for Morocco.
Three stages into the Rallye du Maroc, Quintero leads the T3 overall with Gutiérrez in fourth and Akeel eighth. Guthrie’s title hopes took a hit when he suffered a mechanical issue on Monday while Baciuška retired with damage the day before.
While some drivers have taken more unorthodox career progressions, it is usually ideal for them to showcase their skills in a side-by-side such as T4 or T3 before heading up to T1. Al-Attiyah endorsed this notion after testing a T3 car in June.
“I think for young drivers and new generation, [a T3 would] be much better for them,” Al-Attiyah explained. “I know everyone’s dream is to be in T1+; this is wrong to jump immediately. I think you need to win and you need to compete in T3 and then you can (move up), step by step, but this is a good machine to start.”
