Toby Price explains 'unfortunate' Mitsubishi split

Price, a two-time Dakar winner on two wheels, has made little secret of his longer term ambitions to conquer the famous rally raid on four wheels.

He has been ramping up his four-wheeled efforts in recent years, tackling the series of Baja events as well as running a massive Finke Desert Race campaign in Australia.

With the support of Mitsubishi he has won the last three Finke events in the Cars category in his wild Triton bodied Trophy Truck.

Those crowns sit alongside the six Finke Bikes titles he has won as a factory KTM rider.

As it stands, Price is locked in for at least one more Dakar Bikes campaign for the factory KTM squad early next year.

Beyond that his future is less certain, except for his ambitions to get a four-wheel Dakar programme up and running.

"The plan for the future with Dakar is to make the switch to four wheels, although I know I'm still competitive on two and can do the job that's needed to be done to be at the front," Price told Motorsport.com.

"But the old saying goes, with age comes a cage and I want to race until I'm 60 if I can, so for sure it's an option we're trying to pursue and look at if we can get into a four-wheel seat for Dakar and go from there."

As part of that pursuit, Price has parted ways with Mitsubishi. He did attempt to lure the brand with more Dakar Cars wins than anyone else back to the event, but fell short.

As a result he and Mitsubishi made the tough call to part ways and free Price up for another manufacturer should an opportunity come along.

"Unfortunately I'm no longer an ambassador for Mitsubishi," Price explained.

"Mitsubishi is still to this day the most winningness manufacturer in Dakar history and it would have been nice to bring them back to the sport, but it seems like it's not in the goal and vision for them to do that, which is fine for their business structure.

"But it's hard; I don't want to be locked into something if an opportunity comes along to get into the car category. So we had to part ways.

"I'm forever thankful to Mitsubishi. The cars have always been amazing and we achieved a lot of things together as a partnership over the years. To be able to get three wins in a row in the Finke Desert Race with the Mitsubishi Triton Trophy Truck was definitely a big goal and vision that came it life for us.

"I'm stoked to have been part of the family. But as it goes on, I need two look to my future and hopefully we can build on bigger and better things to come."

Price's three-time Finke-winning Triton is currently up for sale.