Sara Price

 

Sara Price races for the Chip Ganassi team in Extreme E. She has won multiple titles in motocross.

Her motocross career began when she was eight, in about 2000. By 2010, she was competing professionally, winning medals at the X Games and a string of women’s titles.

She switched from two wheels to four in about 2012, winning a championship in Terracross in 2015, an extreme rallycross series for SxS (UTV) vehicles and quads. Her vehicle was a Polaris UTV which she worked on herself. She also travelled to Morocco for the Rallye Aicha des Gazelles, a female-only navigational rally raid. She was seventh in the UTV and Quad class and won the First Participation Challenge rookie award.

Her next challenge was Trophy Trucks. She began in the Stadium Supertruck series founded by Robby Gordon and was its first female participant when she took to the track in Ontario. Soon, that was upgraded to the first woman to lead laps. The series is active in the USA, Canada and Australia and Sara travelled to the other side of the world for the final round. She was second. Her best American result was a fourth place at Costa Mesa in California.

This was in addition to another Terracross win, the first of two in 2016 and 2017.

She continued to race Trophy Trucks in 2017, but this year, she branched out into longer Baja events. Her first event was the Laughlin Desert Classic and she was second overall. At the end of the season, she returned to the stadiums at Storm Stadium.

Her other big development in 2017 was winning the female section of the Hoonigans Wanted Driver Search, run by Ken Block’s Hoonigan organisation. She got to compete in both asphalt and off-road hillclimbs, including a run in a Fiat 124 in the Mount Washington Climb to the Clouds.

She took another step in her off-road journey by making her debut in the 2018 SCORE International championship, a series of Baja races held in the desert of Mexico. Her vehicle was her Trophy Truck, which she ran in the Spec TT class. She was eighth in the class championship, with a fifth place in that year’s Baja 500 and a second in the Desert Challenge, the third round of the championship. 

After learning the courses successfully in 2018, she won the 2019 TT class championship.

In 2020, the coronavirus crisis limited some motorsport activity, although Sara managed to do some Baja events in both a UTV and a Trophy Truck. She also competed in Australia again in her Stadium Trophy Truck.

When Extreme E made public its decision to have male-female teams in all cars in 2021, Sara was the first driver to be announced for the championship. Her partner at Chip Ganassi Racing was Kyle LeDuc. They were one of the most stable partnerships, with both drivers completing all five rounds. The Chip Ganassi car was a standard Odyssey electric SUV with custom Hummer bodywork.

The team did not take the easy way through from the start. Kyle LeDuc was docked a point from their first-round total for causing a collision with Claudia Hurtgen’s ABT Cupra car during the Desert X Prix, leaving them eighth and last. Their best event was the Island X Prix in Sardinia, where Sara and Kyle were fourth, having qualified fifth. Sara, the more reliable driver, was seventh in the championship.

The Price/LeDuc pairing was retained by Ganassi for the 2022 season, although LeDuc was replaced for the final round in Uruguay by RJ Anderson. Sara won her first X Prix in Italy, although it was her only podium. She helped her team to fourth in the 2022 championship. This was her final season in Extreme E, as both drivers were replaced. LeDuc died of cancer in 2023.

She returned to baja events in the USA for 2023, winning rallies in California and Mexico as well as the Mint 400. Later, she moved into rally raids in a Can-Am, in preparation for a run in the 2024 Dakar. She won her class in the Sonora Rally in Mexico and was second in the Rallye du Maroc. Her car for the Dakar was a Can-Am run by South Racing. She was fourth in the SSV class with navigator Jeremy Gray, winning one stage. She is tackling the Dakar again in 2025.

(Image courtesy of Extreme E)

Extreme E

Extreme E is an off-road, rallycross-style championship for Odyssey electric SUVs. Teams of one male and one female driver share a car and complete one lap of the course each during a race.

The series tries to highlight environmental issues by visiting remote locations affected by climate change and pollution. In the first season, this included the Greenland ice sheet, Lac Rose in Senegal and the AlUla desert region of Saudi Arabia. It was developed by Alejandro Agag, CEO of Formula E. The inspiration for mixed teams came from Agag’s love of tennis, where mixed doubles is still played.

The inaugural season ran for five rounds, although the locations changed from those originally planned, due to difficulties caused by the coronavirus crisis. It began in Saudi and passed through Senegal, Greenland, Sardinia and Dorset, UK. All of the Odyssey cars, team equipment, charging bases and some of the personnel moved between sites on the RMS St Helena, a refitted mail ship. Spectators and extraneous media personnel were not allowed, to reduce the footprint of each XPrix.

As team size was kept minimal, the series provided two “championship drivers”, Timo Scheider and Jutta Kleinschmidt, who were able to substitute for anyone unable to compete at short notice. Jutta Kleinschmidt was called into action after Claudia Hurtgen’s roll in Saudi and took the female Cupra seat for the rest of the season. Tamara Molinaro was drafted in as championship driver. Some teams, such as Veloce, had their own reserve drivers for planned absences. Jenson Button, owner of JBXE, pulled out after the first round to concentrate on management and was replaced by Kevin Hansen, competing alongside his brother Kevin.

Molly Taylor and Johan Kristofferson were the first winners, driving for Nico Rosberg’s Rosberg X Racing, ahead of Cristina Gutierrez Herrero and Sebastien Loeb in X44’s Odyssey. The X44 team is owned by Lewis Hamilton.

Season 1 Championship Table

1. Molly Taylor/Johan Kristofferson (Rosberg X Racing)

2. Cristina Gutierrez/Sebastien Loeb (X44)

3. Catie Munnings/Timmy Hansen (Andretti United Extreme E)

4. Mikaela Ahlin-Kottulinsky (JBXE)

=Kevin Hansen (JBXE)

5. Laia Sanz/Carlos Sainz (Acciona Sainz XE Team)

6. Mattias Ekstrom (Abt Cupra)

=Jutta Kleinschmidt (Abt Cupra)

        7. Sara Price (Segi TV Chip Ganassi)

        =Stephane Sarrazin (Veloce)

        8. Kyle LeDuc (Segi TV Chip Ganassi)

        9. Christine Giampaoli Zonca/Oliver Bennett (Xite Energy Hispano Suiza)

        10. Jamie Chadwick (Veloce)

        11. Emma Gilmour (Veloce)

        12. Jenson Button (JBXE)

        =Lance Woolridge (Veloce)

        13. Claudia Hurtgen (Abt Cupra)

A new team, McLaren, joined for the 2022 championship. Its drivers are Emma Gilmour, who sat in for Jamie Chadwick at Veloce when she was on W Series duty, and Tanner Foust. Other changes in personnel happened for Season 2 and the championship drivers were called into action several times. There were five rounds in 2022, held in Saudi, Sardinia (two races), Chile and Uruguay. Defending champion Molly Taylor only did two rounds as a championship driver this year.

Season 2 Championship Table

1. Cristina Gutierrez/Sebastien Loeb (X44 Vida Carbon Racing)

2. Mikaela Ahlin-Kottulinsky/Johan Kristofferson (Rosberg X Racing)

3. Laia Sanz/Carlos Sainz (Acciona Sainz XE Team)

4. Sara Price (GMC Hummer EV Chip Ganassi Racing)

5. Kyle LeDuc (GMC Hummer EV Chip Ganassi Racing)

6. Nasser Al-Attiyah (Abt Cupra XE)

7. Emma Gilmour/Tanner Foust (Mclaren XE)

8. Klara Andersson (Abt Cupra XE)

9. Catie Munnings/Timmy Hansen (Genesys Andretti United Extreme E)

10. Kevin Hansen (JBXE)

11. Tamara Molinaro (Xite Energy Racing)

12. Hedda Hosas (Veloce Racing/JBXE)

13. Timo Scheider (Xite Energy Racing)

14. Molly Taylor (Veloce Racing/JBXE)

15. Oliver Bennett (Xite Energy Racing)

16. RJ Anderson (GMC Hummer EV Chip Ganassi Racing)

17. Lance Woolridge (Veloce Racing)

18. Christine Giampaoli Zonca (Veloce Racing)

19. Jutta Kleinschmidt (Abt Cupra XE)

20. Ezequiel Perez Companc (Xite Energy Racing)

21. Fraser McConnell (JBXE)

For 2023, the Xite team was taken over by DJ and motorsport mogul Carl Cox. There were ten races spread across four locations: Saudi, Scotland, Sardinia and Chile. The two female championship drivers were Tamara Molinaro and Christine GZ, who stepped back from a full-time drive. Both got to make starts. McLaren driver Emma Gilmour was unfortunately injured in a crash in Scotland and had to pull out. She will not return in 2024.

Season 3 Championship Table

1. Mikaela Ahlin-Kottulinsky/Johan Kristofferson (Rosberg X Racing)

2. Laia Sanz/Mattias Ekstrom (Acciona Sainz XE Team)

3. Molly Taylor/Kevin Hansen (Veloce Racing)

4. Cristina Gutierrez/Fraser McConnell (X44 Vida Carbon Racing)

5. Amanda Sorensen/RJ Anderson (GMC Hummer EV Chip Ganassi Racing)

6. Klara Anderson (Abt Cupra XE)

7. Catie Munnings/Timmy Hansen (Andretti Attawkilat Extreme E)

8. Tanner Foust (Mclaren XE)

9. Hedda Hosas (JBXE/McLaren)

10. Sebastien Loeb (Abt Cupra XE)

11. Timo Scheider (Carl Cox Motorsport)

12. Andreas Bakkerud (JBXE)

13. Emma Gilmour (Mclaren XE)

14. Lia Block (Carl Cox Motorsport)

15. Christine GZ (Carl Cox Motorsport)

16. Nasser al-Attiyah (Abt Cupra XE)

17. Tamara Molinaro (JBXE)

18. Adrien Tambay (Abt Cupra XE)

19. Heikki Kovalainen (JBXE)

Season 4 was the last season of Extreme E, which will be renamed Extreme H in 2025 and use hydrogen-powered cars. The championship was reduced to four rounds.

Season 4 Championship Table

1. Molly Taylor/Kevin Hansen (Veloce Racing)

2. Laia Sanz/Fraser McConnell (Acciona Sainz XE Team)

3. Mikaela Ahlin-Kottulinsky/Johan Kristofferson (Rosberg X Racing)

4. Catie Munnings/Timmy Hansen (Andretti Attawkilat Extreme E)

5. Cristina Gutierrez/Mattias Ekstrom (NEOM McLaren Extreme E)

6. Gray Leadbetter (Legacy Motor Club)

7. Klara Andersson/Timo Scheider (Sun Minimeal Team)

8. Patrick O'Donovan (Legacy Motor Club)

9. Andreas Bakkerud (JBXE)

10. Travis Pastrana (Legacy Motor Club)

11. Amanda Sorenson (JBXE)

12. Dania Akeel (JBXE)

(Image copyright Zak Mauger/Extreme E)

 

Laia Sanz

 

Laia with Carlos Sainz

Laia Sanz races in Extreme E for Carlos Sainz's team, sharing an electric Odyssey 4x4.

The Spanish racer, whose full name is Eulalia Sanz Pla-Giribert, is better-known as a motorcycle endurance rider who has won 14 ladies' European trials championships and ridden in the Dakar ten times on a motorbike. She has finished every Dakar she has entered, between 2011 and 2020, with a women’s award each time. Her best overall finish has been ninth in 2015.  

She had been competing in trials aged seven, in 1992. Her first win was in 1997 and she won her first women’s title in 1998, still aged only twelve.

Her four-wheel career began at around the same time as her Dakar debut. Interestingly, she did not opt for off-road competition.

She entered a couple of Clio Cup races in Spain in 2011 and won class A2 of the 2011 Barcelona 24 Hours, driving a Renault Clio. She was 18th overall, assisted by Enric and Jordi Codony, Francesc Gutierrez and Santi Navarro. 

In 2014, she did some ice racing in Andorra, in the G Series, and competed directly against Ingrid Rossell in a match race. She also did two rounds of the SEAT Leon Supercopa, in Catalunya, and was 19th and 20th. 

In 2015, she returned to enduros, and was ninth in the Dakar on a KTM. She did do some four-wheeled outings in a SEAT Leon, including two races in the Supercopa and the Catalunya 24 Hours, at Barcelona. She was 16th overall and second in class, as part of a two-driver team. 

At the end of the season, she was signed by the works KTM team, and concentrated on motorcycles for a season. 

She did another car race in 2017, finishing 15th in the TCR 24H race at Catalunya. Her car was a SEAT Leon. 

She entered the same race in 2018, driving a SEAT Cupra for the Monlau team. She and her team-mates won their class. 

Her first start in Extreme E came after a long recovery period for wrist injuries sustained in the 2020 Dakar where she was riding for the works Gas Gas team. Her warm-up was a run in a Can-Am SxS vehicle at the Baja Dubai. She was fourth in the UTV class.

Carlos Sainz himself had requested that she join the Acciona Sainz XE team. Each Extreme E must have a male and a female driver and Laia was the first choice for the Spanish team’s female seat.

The first Extreme E race was held in Saudi Arabia and the second event in Senegal and this was her first time visiting the country, as the Dakar had stopped visiting Dakar itself by the time she made her debut. She and Carlos Sainz were ninth in Senegal, having finished fourth in Saudi.

Despite saying that she would carry on with motorcycles when her seat in Extreme E was announced, she decided to commit to four wheels during 2021, including her first run in the Dakar in a car for 2022.

Her first E-Prix in Saudi was a relative success and she and Carlos qualified second, although they were dropped to fourth in the final by mechanical problems. The pair tended to qualify well but come up against issues in finals and their best finish was third in Greenland. They were fifth in the championship.

The second season of Extreme E featured an unchanged Acciona Sainz driver pairing. They were third overall, with two second places in the Saudi desert round and the Chile race. Both drivers usually qualified well, but did quite not have the pace for the final.

Her Dakar adventure ended in a solid 23rd place in the Car class, driving a Mini All4 with Maurizio Gerini. The car was run by the X-Raid team.

Laia's third season in Extreme E featured a new team-mate in Mattias Ekstrom. The pair won two races in Saudi and Sardinia from pole, on their way to second in the championship. They were also second four times. They were also the fastest qualifiers for the second Chile race, but were beaten by the Veloce team, who won the championship.

She entered the Dakar again in 2024, driving an Astara T1.2 prototype. Her co-driver was the Italian Maurizio Gerini. They were 15th in the Car class.

Back in Extreme E, Laia partnered Jamaican driver Fraser McConnell. They won the second Desert E-Prix and were second in both Hydro races, finishing second overall in the final Extreme E championship.

The same pairing as 2024 entered the 2025 Dakar, driving for the Century Racing Factory Team, but they had to retire on the second stage.

(Image from enduro21.com)

Christine Giampaoli Zonca

 

Christine Giampaoli Zonca, also known as Christine GZ, is best known as being one of the first drivers in the debut season of Extreme E, an electric off-road championship.

Christine competes under an Italian license, despite spending her early childhood in India and mainly competing in her adopted home of the Canary Islands. She also studied engineering in the UK. Her career encompasses stage rallying and buggy-based off-road rallying. 

Her first rally appears to have been the Corralejo-Majanicho Rallysprint in 2013, although she did not even get to the start in her self-built VW Golf as the rally was cancelled. Throughout her career, she has used her training to work on her own cars

She returned in 2014 and her first event was the San Bartolomé slalom. Christine, the only non-Spanish entrant, was 25th overall, driving a Toyota Corolla. She states on her website that the Corolla was the car that made her want to take up rallying. It remained her favoured car in 2014 and her first stage rally, the Tierra Isla Verde Rally, gave her a fourteenth place with a class win. She achieved two more top-twenty finishes in the Canary Islands and was 18th in the islands’ gravel championship, with a class win. In slaloms, she did even better, with a best finish of fourth in the Isla de Lanzarote-Tinjo event. She was 16th overall in the Canary Islands Gravel championship and won the 2WD class.

2015 had more of the same. She combined slaloms and stage rallies again and achieved her first top ten on the stages, a ninth place in the Isla de los Volcanes Rally. Her car was the Corolla. She entered five rallies that year, but was plagued by car trouble, and only finished two of them. Slaloms were a happier hunting ground and her best finish was fourth again in the Lanzarote-Tinjo slalom. During the season, she was signed up by the Spanish motorsport association for a two-year development programme, supported by Peugeot. Her first event in a Peugeot was the Rallye de Tierra at Malaga, but she retired due to mechanical failure.

In 2016, she started the year with slaloms in a Subaru Impreza. This had been her road car until she converted it herself to Group N spec. Her first event of the year was the La Candelaria - Tias event and she was second overall. Later, she did the Isla de los Volcanes event in it, finishing fourteenth. Her Peugeot deal led to several drives in an R2-spec 208, including a run in the WRC Rally Catalunya. She finished 49th overall. Her best finish in the 208 that year was a 16th place in the Ciutat de Valls Rally, one of the first asphalt rallies she had tried.

She was the top female driver in the Spanish gravel championship and third in the Junior class, as well as third in the overall Spanish women's championship. Away from Spain, she did her first international rally in a Ford Fiesta: the Bianco Azzurro Rose‘n’Bowl event in San Marino. She was 31st.

In 2017, she rallied four different cars, including the Impreza, a Fiesta R2 and two different Peugeots. She entered the Rally of Catalunya in a Peugeot 208, but did not finish. As well as stage rallies, she was very active in off-roading, having joined the US-based Dynamic Racing team. Her events included the Mexican Baja 500 and the Californian Baja 1000, driving a SxS buggy. A year that began with plans to contest the European Rally Championship ended up bringing her into another motorsport world and she showed promise, with a best finish of tenth.

Off-roading became her focus in 2018, although she did enter a Can-Am Maverick buggy into some Spanish gravel rallies too. She was eighth in the Ciutat de Tarrega rally and 15th in the Ralli Vidreres de Terra. In pure off-road competition, she was active in America again, but she also tried her first FIA Cross-Country World Championship rallies in Portugal and Spain. She was tenth in the Baja Portugal.She switched teams to the Avatel setup for European events in 2020, although the coronavirus crisis prevented a lot of events from happening..

After spending 2019 and part of 2020 in Spanish off-roading, she was announced as a driver for the Xite Hispano-Suiza team for Extreme E, an electric eco-conscious off-road championship which features male-female teams. She was signed alongside rallycross driver Oliver Bennett. They were fifth in the Desert XPrix in Saudi Arabia then sixth in the Ocean XPrix, held at Lac Rose in Senegal. These were their best results of the season; although Christine got progressively quicker as the year went on, the team struggled. She was announced as the 2022 female driver for Veloce in January.

As well as Extreme E, Christine contested the 2021 Iberia Cup for cross-country rallies. She won the T1N class in the Baja TT Dehesa Extremadura, driving a Toyota Hilux.

Her time with Veloce in Extreme E started badly with a broken foot in qualifying for the season-opening Desert X-Prix in Saudi. She was replaced by championship driver Hedda Hosas. The long gap between rounds one and two meant that she was able to return for the second round in Sardinia, but she and Lance Woolridge could only manage eighth. They did not reach any finals this year and both drivers were replaced for the final round in Uruguay, with Christine taking over as championship driver. 

She started 2023 as a driver for Carl Cox's team, who had bought out Xite. Together with Timo Scheider, she managed on third place in the first Scottish race, but their car was not fit to race the next day and they dropped out. Christine was replaced by Lia Block for the rest of the season, although she did deputise as championship driver for the last two rounds. 

Much of the rest of 2023 was spent preparing for her first attempt at the Dakar in 2024. She joined the TC Racing team in a Can-Am SSV, partnered by Ricardo Torlaschi. They did not finish.

There were no more Extreme E rounds in 2024, although she was one of the series' championship drivers for the first two races. 

(Image copyright Extreme E)

Cristina Gutierrez Herrero

 

Cristina Gutiérrez Herrero is a Spanish off-road specialist who has won stage rallies and recorded stage wins on the Dakar. 

She mostly competes in rally raids, but has proved competitive in rallysprints, driving 4WD vehicles. She won one such event, the Tierra Alfoz de Quintanadueñas Rallysprint in 2012, driving a Toyota Landcruiser against both off-road and stage rally cars. 

She has been rallying since 2010 and previously competed in karting and motocross. Her first off-road rally was the 2010 Historicos Baja Tierras del Cid, with her brother as her co-driver. She was fourth, driving a Toyota Landcruiser. Her first major event was the 2011 Baja Espana, the first of eighth consecutive entries.

At the end of 2016, she embarked on her first Dakar Rally. She finished the event in 44th place and became the first Spanish woman to make it to the end. Her car was a Mitsubishi Montero.

Her second Dakar was a particularly tough one, as her production Mitsubishi was not quite as competitive as she wanted and she got very little sleep. Still, she improved on her finishing position from 2017 with a 38th place. This was in spite of a multiple roll down a sand dune on the opening stage.

She upgraded to a faster Mitsubishi prototype, an Eclipse Cross, in 2019. This proved a sensible move and she recorded her third consecutive finish, in 26th place. She was the first Spanish driver and the first Mitsubishi crew to finish.

Driving a new car for the Red Bull Junior team, she competed in the 2021 Dakar with navigator Francois Cazalet and became the first female driver to win a stage since Jutta Kleinschmidt in 2005. She won three stages overall, driving a Red Bull-sponsored Light Prototype vehicle. Sadly, the car’s gearbox gave up after the seventh stage. 

She has won the Spanish All-Terrain Rally championship: she was T1 champion and overall runner-up in 2015 after a series of second places in Spanish raids, including the Baja Aragon, which is part of the FIA Cross-Country Cup. Previously in 2014, she was seventh in the championship, and fourth in class. She was driving a Mitsubishi. To match her six Dakar outings, she has earned six Spanish women’s off-road titles.

In 2015, she was third in the FIA Women’s Cross Country Selection event in Qatar and won a funded drive in the 2016 Sealine CrossCountry Rally. She was the first female driver home.

She still occasionally competed in stage rallying during this time. In 2017, she drove a different Mitsubishi, a Lancer Evo VIII, in the Isla de los Volcanes Rally. She did not finish. Her only gravel outing in 2018, the Terra de Auga Rally, gave her a thirteenth place in an Evo X. 

After a break, she drove a Ford Fiesta in the 2020 Terra da Auga Rally and finished 18th overall, from 56 finishers. 

At the end of 2020, she was announced as a driver for the X44 Extreme E team, led by Lewis Hamilton. Her team-mate was Sebastien Loeb. They won the final round of the championship, held in Dorset, UK, having consistently qualified well but had problems in finals. Their final position was second.

This was doubly remarkable considering that Cristina suffered two broken vertebrae during the Kazakhstan Rally and had to take two months' rest. It was triply remarkable in that she had just won the Kazakhstan event for the Red Bull Off-Road Junior team, in severe pain after crashing on the final leg.

She was on form for the 2022 Dakar, driving a T3 Lightweight prototype for the Red Bull Junior team. A potential disqualification due to the team using a banned Bluetooth intercom was suspended, meaning she and Francois Cazalet kept their third place in class.

Another Extreme E season with Sebastien Loeb ended in a championship victory. They only won one event outright in Chile, but three further podiums kept them ahead.

She paired up with Jamaican Fraser McConnell for X44 in the 2023 Extreme E championship. They won races in Scotland and Sardinia and were fourth overall in the championship, often performing well in heats. In preparation for another Dakar in January 2024, she entered several cross-country events, finishing fourth in class in the Sonora Rally, third in Morocco and second in the Desafio Ruta 40. Her car is a T3 Taurus light prototype.

The Taurus gave her one of the biggest prizes in her career at the beginning of 2024: a class win in the Dakar after five stage wins. She was victorious in the Challenger class, co-driven by Pablo Moreno Huete.

She also signed for the Dacia team but only did preparation and development for them, in readiness for the 2025 Dakar. Her team-mate will be Sebastien Loeb once more.

During the main 2024 motorsport season, she took part in the last Extreme E championship, sharing a McLaren Odyssey with Mattias Ekstrom. They were fifth in the shortened championship, with a best finish of second in Saudi Arabia.

Away from rallying, Cristina is a dentist.

(Image copyright Red Bull)