Dakar 2023: New era starts for Austin Jones

While this will be already the fourth Dakar for defending T4 Dakar winner Austin Jones, almost everything will be new for the young American driver this year. For the first time, he will start in the T3 category, driving South Racing’s brand new vehicle, in Red Bull livery. Amidst all the changes, however, his co-driver remains Brazil’s Gustavo Gugelmin and the crew have already had their first taste of the 2023 Dakar.
“Just did the shakedown here in Saudi Arabia for Dakar 2023. Really excited to be back here, this will be my 4th Dakar. We feel good, a couple of changes, new sponsors, new car, new class. We’ll be running T3 class this time, that’s a big change. Yeah, South Racing has put together this new team and a couple of things have changed around a little bit, but everything is going really good. After Rally Andalucia I raced the Baja 1000 in the Can-Am as well, that was fun. I did a lot of training, had a lot of time at home with my family, that was really nice. A lot of training, time in the dunes, a lot of time driving around in gravel, so other than that not much, just really waiting for Dakar and excited to be here.
There’s a lot of difference between the T3 and T4, but the number one thing is the top speed. The T3 cars go a little bit faster, tire size is a big difference, the way that South Racing has produced these cars - a couple of little tricks here and there to make them nice. Really excited to go racing.
47 T3 teams is a lot, it’s really good for the class, I prefer more people. It’s gonna be fun to race against that many people, a lot of really fast people out here,”
Austin Jones said.

Text: Rita Kónya
Interview: Sveta Amelichkina
Photos: MCH