Hat-tricks "KamAZ-master"

Three crews of the Russian KamAZ-master team continue to confidently lead the overall standings of the Dakar rally-raid.

After a day of rest on January 9, the racing marathon continued with a stage between the cities of Hail and Sakaka.

Moreover, after him, the mechanics were prohibited by the regulations from approaching the cars, so the participants in the march across the Arabian desert were required to carry additional spare parts with them and be extremely careful all the way, otherwise any breakdown would have to be corrected on their own.

Sunday's special stage was also difficult because half of the route passed through dunes and sand, wet after heavy rain, and long high-speed sections could be abruptly interrupted by various obstacles.

But these harsh conditions did not become a problem for the KamAZ-master riders.

Three leaders of the overall standings of trucks - Dmitry Sotnikov, Anton Shibalov and Airat Mardeev - started almost simultaneously and took first place alternately.

The current winner of the Dakar, Andrey Karginov, was forced to play the role of a technician for his teammates.

Shibalov still had to stop for a short while due to a punctured wheel, and then Alexey Vishnevsky from MAZ-SPORTavto tried to impose competition on KamAZ.

For almost the entire remaining distance, the Belarusian pilot was either ahead of Mardeev or lagged behind him, until he himself got stuck on the ridge and lost several minutes on this.

The Russian team managed to take the first three places for the second time in a row, and Sotnikov won the fifth victory at Dakar-2021.

The last one to achieve such a result in one rally-raid was Eduard Nikolaev in 2015.

The third hat-trick of Chelny players was not long in coming and happened already at the next, eighth stage.

The participants had to go to the Red Sea and finish in the city of Neom, founded less than four years ago.

Numerous dry channels and canyons awaited the riders, which should be treated with particular attention.

This time, Karginov joined the fight for the podium, who could no longer restrain himself and clearly intended to rise above the eighth place in the overall standings.

Vishnevsky fought for victory at the stage for a long time, but 50 km before the finish line, luck again left him.

The wheel of the Belarusian truck exploded, and it was consistently outstripped by Shibalov, Karginov and Sotnikov, who held the lead in the overall standings.

Only Mardeev was unlucky that day, who finished seventh due to a wheel change.

đźšš Anton Shibalov won stage 8 as @KAMAZmasterTEAM once again dominated the podium.

Sotnikov and Karginov made up 2nd and 3rd whilst the former retains his place at the top.



Take a look at the best of the Trucks in the highlights video 👇 # Dakar2021pic.twitter.com / y3ZTjhNyu1

- DAKAR RALLY (@dakar) January 11, 2021

Interrupted winning streak

The rivals managed to stop the dominance of "KamAZ-master" only at the ninth stage, during which the participants circled around Neom.

There was less sand on the route than at the two previous special stages, but there were much more stone obstacles, and in the second half of the distance the riders had to rise almost one kilometer above sea level.

In the course of the 465-kilometer special stage, the main struggle was between Vishnevsky and Shibalov, but sometimes Chilean Ignacio Casale interfered in it on Tatra (three-time and reigning Dakar champion in the ATV classification).

But in the last third of the distance, Martin Matsik from Big Shock Racing became the leader, who after the fourth stage was Sotnikov's closest pursuer.

On Tuesday, the Czech managed to win about 2.5 minutes against Mardeev and Sotnikov, interrupting the winning streak of KamAZ-master.

But it did not greatly affect the overall position in the standings of trucks.

The Russian team continues to occupy the first three lines in the overall standings and will try to repeat the result of 2015, when all the places on the podium went to the team from Naberezhnye Chelny.

After the ninth stage, Sotnikov is already 45 minutes ahead of Shibalov, and he wins 28 minutes against Mardeev.

The leader of KamAZ-master has an hour and a half ahead of Alyos Loprais, the closest competitor of the Russian team's crews.

The rise, fall and dissatisfaction of Karjakin

In addition to the KamAZ-master pilots, Sergey Karjakin tried to conquer the Dakar.

He was again declared in the all-terrain vehicle classification, in which he took second place in 2020.

But this time the native of Yekaterinburg will not repeat his result.

He ran into problems in the ninth stage and was unable to finish with all the other participants, thus losing the chance of winning.

The rally-raid did not start very well for Karjakin.

His best result before the day of rest was sixth in the second stage.

The Russian driver managed to gradually rise to fourth place in the overall standings, but then a fall by two positions followed.

The seventh marathon stage aggravated Karjakin's position.

He damaged the wheels three times due to stones and initially showed only the 13th time.

But in the final protocol, the Russian was one line lower when the organizers returned to Francisco Lopez Kontardo 45 minutes spent helping the opponent and awarded him a victory.

Only at the eighth stage did Karjakin get lucky.

He walked the entire distance on a par with the Chilean and claimed victory, but in the end he lost 52 seconds and showed the second time of the day.

In the overall standings, the Russian took fifth place, losing 27.5 minutes to the first three.

However, most of all on Monday, Karjakin was remembered not for his result, but for his frank comments.

He accused one of the rivals that he used illegal assistance from the outside and informed about his location using the track.

“The Saudi, who also participates in the race and shows a good time, absolutely insolently used the“ black vehicle ”both for repairs on the bivouac and during the liaison.

He was insolently replaced with spare wheels and given spare parts.

Now it was the same at the finish line.

And the most offensive thing is not even this illegal service, for which disqualification is due, but the fact that he had a track: he knew where he should be in order to be helped.

This means that the tracks still merge, which is very disappointing.

The organizers are trying to make a beautiful story, which, unfortunately, somehow goes to the wrong place, ”Karjakin said after the finish.

A little later, the Russian pilot confirmed that he meant Saleh Al-Saif, who at that time was ranked seventh in the all-terrain vehicle classification.

Karjakin noted that he was not the only one who noticed the violations, and now he expects the organizers to take measures against him.

But Karjakin will no longer be able to compete with Al-Saif on the route.

On Tuesday, January 12, the Russian faced serious technical problems, due to which he lost several hours and dropped out of the fight for the title.