By the middle of the Dakar rally-raid, almost no one had any doubts about the triumph of the KamAZ-master team in the standings of trucks. As a result, the Russians won all 12 stages and the prologue. The crews of Dmitry Sotnikov and Eduard Nikolaev fought primarily among themselves. The gap between the pilots ranged from 4-11 minutes after each special stage. They changed places on the podium, only occasionally allowing representatives of other countries to approach them. Both were driving the latest K5 trucks, successfully tested on last year's Silk Road.
Any of them could win the rally-raid. No one was going to ban wrestling in KamAZ, but on one condition: maximum help to a partner in a difficult situation. So, on the 11th special stage, Sotnikov's truck sat down on the bottom on a high dune. Nikolaev went to rescue a teammate, although in the overall standings he was only 10 minutes behind Dmitry. If Eduard left the issue of Sotnikov's getting stuck to the crews of Andrey Karginov and Anton Shibalov, who were going behind, he would immediately become the leader and practically secure his sixth title in his career. However, team interests for Nikolaev turned out to be higher than personal ones.
As a result, Eduard remained second, unable to win back the backlog at the last stage. Sotnikov celebrated the victory for the second time in a row. After the finish, the winner of the competition admitted that this rally-raid was significantly different from the other two rally-raids that took place on the Arabian Peninsula.
“The race was tight.
It was very different from the previous two in Saudi Arabia.
"Dakar-2022" without a warm-up began with the hardest special stages in the sand.
We dominated the whole team, but the competition for the victory went on every day, until the last kilometer it was impossible to relax.
And even 500 meters before the finish line, they were worried, because it was important to get to the end.
We have a new car, the whole team has worked hard on the creation of this truck for the past year.
Thanks to everyone who was worried and ill, this victory is our common result.
Russia is the champion!
Sotnikov said in an interview with the press service of the team.
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Two more representatives of KamAZ-master, Shibalov and Karginov, fought for bronze awards, who competed on old truck models, supplemented with various technical innovations.
Two Czech crews tried to impose a fight on them.
However, the intrigue died two stages before the end of the race.
Alyosha Loprais, who was trying to catch up with Shibalov, who was third, had problems at the very beginning of the 11th special stage.
On the truck, the drive responsible for the steering broke down.
The crew started many hours of repairs in the desert and lost their chances for a good result.
Thus, Karginov, who was far behind his teammate, moved to the fourth position.
And the closest pursuer of the Russian was Janus van Kasteren on Iveco.
However, Andrei ended up more than an hour ahead of the Czech in the overall standings.
For the first time since 2011, the first four places went to the Russian team.
Against the backdrop of such dominance of KamAZ-master, their competitors during the rally put forward strange theories about the reasons for the victories.
The Dutchman Maurik van den Heuvel from the International team accused the Russians of cheating.
The athlete stated that the team allegedly has equipment that provides additional information on the waypoints of the special stage, which allows them to cut.
As an example, he cited an episode when Karginov's crew overtook his truck and turned in the opposite direction from the sign, eventually gaining an advantage.
However, confirmation of the words of the pilot was not found.
Eric Khairullin, head of the KamAZ-master press service, immediately responded to the Dutch accusations.
“There is no way we could have more information.
It's just that our trucks are faster.
We would be happy with more competition: it would be good for sports, and we would have more fun, ”Khairullin emphasized in a conversation with the Championship portal.
The head of the KamAZ-master team, Vladimir Chagin, after the 19th in history and the sixth consecutive victory at the Dakar, noted that this year it was especially important to win the tournament, because it became one of the stages of the World Championship.
“Today we are extremely happy that we were able to take the first four places and once again prove to everyone that the Russian KamAZ trucks are the fastest, most reliable. This year, Dakar received the status of a stage of the World Cup. You can see that there are no Russian flags on the car or on the equipment, although the Dakar tradition is a car with the flag of the country. In such a situation, it was all the more important for us to show the highest possible result this year, so that in the results table at the very top there were simple Russian surnames - Sotnikov, Nikolaev, Shibalov, Karginov. And in these surnames - Russia. I would like to congratulate all our partners, sponsors and fans. They have been with us all year and supported us in these two weeks, ”said Chagin.
In other offsets, the results of the Russians were not so impressive.
Pavel Lebedev, riding a prototype all-terrain vehicle, finished fifth.
Vladimir Vasiliev took tenth place in the car classification, and Denis Krotov became 28th.
Two Russian riders were unable to finish the rally raid.
The stumbling block for them was the seventh stage.
Sergey Karyakin, who competed in the class of serial all-terrain vehicles, had an accident.
After passing the first milestone, he collided head-on with an Italian from the T3 light prototype category.
And the quad biker Alexander Maksimov, who was in the top three in the overall standings, could not reach the start of the eighth special stage due to problems with the equipment.