Hamilton’s team prevails over Rosberg’s in the final round of Extreme E, contrary to what happened last year. And, this time, it is a victory with a Spanish flavor.
Lewis Hamilton’s X44 team, made up of Cristina Gutiérrez and Sébastien Loeb from Burgos, has been proclaimed champion of the second season of Extreme E.
The 100% electric off-road vehicle championship came to an end this weekend with its fifth round, the Energy X Prix, held in Uruguay, and a third place there was enough for the victory of the Spanish-French duo.
A single overall championship victory in Chile was enough for the X44 team to clinch the Extreme E title and take the baton from Rosberg X Racing, last year’s champions.
The regularity of Gutiérrez and Loeb, who have been on the podium in all but one race (the first of the two held in Sardinia), has been key in achieving the championship, where they have only beaten Rosberg’s squad by five points.
X44 played the championship in the Uruguayan event, which Cristina and Sébastien did not start at all well, since the woman from Burgos suffered a spectacular rollover.
But things did not go well for their rivals either, RXR and the ACCIONA Sainz XE Team, who were involved in other incidents, and were eliminated in the Crazy Race and in the semifinal 2 respectively, which prevented them from reaching the final, something that X44 did after winning, precisely, the Crazy Race.
In the final, where the ABT CUPRA XE team of Nasser Al-Attiyah and Klara Andersson took their first championship win, a third-place finish from Cristina and Sébastien was enough to seal the Extreme E title for the X44 team.
In the standings, behind them, Rosberg X Racing finished in second place and the ACCIONA Sainz XE Team of Laia Sanz and Carlos Sainz in third position.
Cristina Gutiérrez: “I still can’t believe it”
Cristina Gutiérrez, who became a Red Bull athlete and also joined this team recommended by Loeb, did not believe she would win the title even after finishing on the podium.
“I still can’t believe it. It’s been a tough weekend for us, especially after rolling. The team has done an incredible job with the spare car, the first time we drove it was in Qualifying 2.”
Now the woman from Burgos is thinking about her next challenge, the 2023 Dakar Rally, where she will be present again this year in the T3 category.
