Are Quintero's 10 stage victories worth Lartigue's record?

Hungry for records, the Americans equaled a new one during the 10th stage of the Dakar 2022 this Wednesday, January 12 in Bisha (Saudi Arabia). At the wheel of his Overdrive OT3, Seth Quintero recorded his 10th stage victory in the competition, including the Prologue. The 19-year-old Californian therefore recorded all the scratch times in this edition apart from the second stage!

The resident of Red Bull Off-Road Junior Team, sailed by the German Dennis Zenz, theoretically joins the three-time winner of the Paris-Dakar, Pierre Lartigue, on the shelves. The trucker from Mostaganem had crushed the Mitsubishis and then the internal competition by gleaning 10 stage victories during the unprecedented Paris-Dakar-Paris in 1994, while he was driving for Citroën with Michel Périn as co-driver.

The legendary Citroën ZX from Lartigue-Périn. © GILLES LEVENT / DPPI

“We broke the record for stage victories on the same Dakar, which is crazy, I have no words, declared Seth Quintero, entered in Light Prototype (T3). We don't have a phone in the car to know the time of others, we can only have reference to the petrol refueling. I discovered on arrival that we had succeeded.

However, we missed a way point, it cost us 3' or 4' to validate it. It was a little complicated today, but magically, we are here with the record for winning special stages on a single Dakar in our pocket. And we still have two steps to try to do better! I'm really happy, I can go home feeling proud of myself. »

Except there's a slight catch. Seth Quintero competes in the T3 category, on modified SSVs, which cannot compete with the 4x4s and buggies of the T1 category. In other words, the American's special successes are category victories, where Pierre Lartigue beat all the vehicles in the competition in Africa.

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General classification of the Dakar 2022