“I’d really like to get my hands on that trophy!”

Seth Quintero was born in 2002 in California and by the tender age of 4 was already riding a quad bike. He started competing in SSVs at the age of 10 and a year later, in 2014, won the junior category of the UTV world championship organised in the USA. No surprise he quickly came up on Red Bull’s radar! At 16, he won the Best in the Desert championship before setting a series of records: youngest driver to win the Mint 400, the Vegas to Reno, the UTV world championship in the pro category, the Parker 500 and the Silver State 300 in the SSV category. In 2021, the Californian became the youngest winner of a Dakar stage at the age of 18! On stage 9, he and his teammate Dennis Zenz were ‘virtual’ class leaders before running into transmission problems. A weakness that would cost them dear for the rest of the season. For the 2022 Dakar, this Achilles heel was sorted thanks to new T3 regulations that allowed the use of a stronger gearbox. But while he was flying high in the T3 category, having already won the first two special stages, Seth once again came to a griding halt with a broken differential. The American would make the best of it by embarking on a phenomenal charge that would see him win twelve special stages out of a possible thirteen! With each stage win worth 5 points, Seth finished 3rd in the W2RC with 63 points, despite being 16th overall on the Dakar in T3. 3rd in Abu Dhabi, he won his first W2RC round in October on the Rallye du Maroc before finishing 2nd in Andalucia to take 2nd place in the world championship behind ‘Chaleco’ Lopez. In the process he and his co-driver Dennis Zenz won over 60% of the championship’s stages!

“I reckon we’ve got the car sorted now and winning the Dakar is very clearly our goal for 2023. The plan is to be smooth, fast and consistent and I’m confident that Dennis and I can do that for 2 weeks no problem. Not that I’m under any illusion that getting that win is going to be easy. There’s so many fast drivers in the T3 class -it’s a phenomenally competitive category. Lopez is obviously going to be a major rival, as is Mitch Gutherie Jr and his new co-driver and of course you can never discount Cristina Gutierrez who’s knows how to get a car well placed at the finish line. As far as the world championship is concerned I don’t reckon you have to win the Dakar, a top 5 could be enough, but if you asked me to choose between the two right now I’d choose the Dakar. It’s slipped through our fingers twice now and I’d really like to get my hands on that trophy!”