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Motorsport is something that makes a lot of people smile. But while Cristina Gutierrez’s successes behind the wheel deliver happiness to many, herself included, the NEOM McLaren driver has also been putting smiles on faces in another way.  

When she’s not racing our papaya machine in Extreme E, or winning the Dakar Rally in her side-by-side, Cristina is working as a dentist back in her native Spain. It’s an unusual balancing act that sets her out among her motorsport peers.  

“I always wanted to be a driver, when I was very young I started to dream about racing, cars and motorbikes, but I realised it was not an easy world, so I tried to find another solution,” she says of the beginnings of both of her extraordinary careers. “That’s why I started to study dentistry at university. I mixed both activities. I started to compete in the Spanish championship. It was every weekend, I think one weekend per month more or less, so I could share both activities.”  

Vuelta a la normalidad sin descanso tras el #Dakar2017... pero con una 😁 y un 🏅Tenía ganas de volver a ver a mis compis!! @dakar pic.twitter.com/0j9XEkYeZo

— Cristina Gutiérrez (@crisgutierrez) January 18, 2017

Growing up, many children dream of achieving high-level careers in the medical industry or motorsports, but Cristina has achieved both, and even those came after she was unable to take on her original career ambition: a helicopter rescue pilot.  

“I saw a movie when I was young, I don’t know the name, but I saw helicopter pilots in the coastguard,” she recalls. “I wanted to one day be a pilot like that – I love to save people but then I started to lose some vision, I know this is a problem when being a pilot, so I started to study dentistry.”  

Extreme E allows her the chance to scratch the flying itch with big jumps on wild courses all over the world, while dentistry also allows Cristina the satisfaction of helping people, too. Something she says makes her feel like a “magician”.  

“My favourite thing in dentistry is to see a bad smile become a good smile. It’s like I’m a magician, they’re very happy to see the change before and after,” she says, sporting a wide smile of her own, the satisfaction of jobs well done clear to see. “And for sure, being a driver, it’s been my passion since the beginning of my life and I am living my dream, it’s the best thing you can do with your life.”  

And what do Cristina’s patients think of her double life? Well, if anything, it helps to settle the nerves that come with the sometimes-scary dentist’s chair. 

“Sometimes, people are a little scared, but then when they get to know me, they’re totally okay,” she quips. “They ask me about the races and they sometimes give me a piece of paper and ask me to sign it for friends or family or whoever – it’s a fun moment.”  

Dentistry has also, believe it or not, helped her driving career. But the somewhat mechanical inclination of orthodontics hasn’t led to her being called upon to work on the car… yet.  

“At the moment, they haven’t asked, but if they need anything, for sure I will help,” she says with a laugh.   

“I think, when you are an orthodontist, you need to be very patient with your hands and you need to be very calm in some moments.

“You are working with the mouth and it’s a little space to work, so this type of work helps a little bit in racing because you are more focused on things and you are very calm in different situations. And on the opposite side, some crazy moments in racing help me a little bit in dentistry.”  

Both careers have clearly been satisfying for Cristina. She gets to be that “magician” on weekdays, while at weekends she’s expanding her motorsport CV with victories and podium finishes, including a breakthrough second for the NEOM McLaren Extreme E Team at the season opener. But that satisfaction doesn’t come without its challenges. 

“It’s difficult sometimes because you need to be focused on the two different, very professional worlds,” Cristina says. “You need to be sure that you spend enough time on both, doing the two correctly. That’s why, maybe, I would prefer to focus on one thing, after a few years of doing both.   

“These last three years have been hard, because I have spent many days away from home, before then coming back to work as a dentist, with so many things to do. For that reason, I would prefer to focus on driving.” 

As her four-wheel career gained traction, this transition has been gradually creeping in, with Cristina dedicating less time to dentistry and more to her racing career.   

“When I finished university and began working, I started to become a little bit better at motorsport, and then when I became a professional racing driver, I started to reduce the amount of patients I treat,” she says.  

“I am also an orthodontist, and with these patients, I will work with them for a year, a year and a half, until they finish their treatment. I am now finishing with the last of these patients and then I will focus even more on my driving for some years.” 

The transition has been helped by her joining McLaren over the winter, with Cristina explaining that she has been working on “many good projects” since becoming part of the papaya family.  

“It's good that we focus on racing because I think we can improve a lot. I can do a lot of things outside of the racing to be a better driver,” she says.  

While focusing on motorsport full-time is the fulfilment of a lifelong dream, her career in dentistry gives her a valuable alternative, should her time in racing come to a premature end.  

“In motorsport you never know,” she concedes. “Sometimes it’s a short career, sometimes it’s a long career, but for sure I have another option. It gives me peace of mind that when I finish racing, I could come back to dentistry.”  

However, if her start to life at McLaren is anything to go by, that day is a long way off.   

Cristina and her teammate Mattias took second in the first Desert X Prix – our best start to an Extreme E season to date – and followed that up with a Redemption Race win the very next day. It’s set the team up nicely for the year ahead, with expectations higher than ever, and she'll return to action with the team this weekend in Scotland for the Hypro X Prix.