On Sunday, November 21, the trucks of the KAMAZ-master team took the road to the 2022 Dakar Rally. Before this, the team had held their traditional parade on the test track in Tarlovka.
The event was attended by Rustam Minnikhanov, President of the Republic of Tatarstan, Sergey Kogogin, General Director of KAMAZ PTC, Alfiya Kogogina, Deputy of the State Duma of the Russian Federation, Nail Magdeev, Mayor of the city of Naberezhnye Chelny, Nail Maganov, General Director of PJSC Tatneft, and others.
The vehicles of the KAMAZ-master team headed for Europe to be ferried to the Arabian Peninsula from French Marseille on November 30. KAMAZ-master’s head Vladimir Chagin told the guests how the drivers had prepared for the main start of the season.
The President of Tatarstan was shown the trucks which will have to compete for the victory at Dakar 2022. The KAMAZ-master team will present four sports trucks for the race. Two of them are KAMAZ-43509 vehicles already familiar to the fans of the team and two new KAMAZ-435091 trucks of the K5 line.
Having examined new technical solutions applied and certain updated components and assemblies of the vehicle, Rustam Minnikhanov himself tested the new racing truck of the K5 line on the team’s proving ground. “This is a completely different truck now. Both the exterior and lots of technical solutions – all this suggests that this is a new step for KAMAZ in truck racing,” the President of the Republic emphasized.
“It is clear that the next Dakar was supposed to introduce the new sports truck based on the K5 cab. This is important for us,” noted Sergey Kogogin, General Director of KAMAZ PTC. “Last year we brought an experimental-industrial batch of K5 generation KAMAZ vehicles to the market and received positive feedback. They are in mass production to date. We assemble at least 10 such trucks a day. Our customers are satisfied. The truck is reliable and cost-effective. Of course, we are planning to launch this product outside the country. And is there a better advertising platform than the Dakar followed in almost all countries of the world? So, the goal was to create a new truck using this cab.” The head of the company said that he had repeatedly driven the K5 sports truck and noted that the KAMAZ-master team had worked very well on this truck featuring excellent weight distribution and handling.
The 44th Dakar starts in Ha’il on January 2 and finishes in Jeddah on January 14. The rest day is scheduled for January 8 in Riyadh. Scrutineering will take place on December 30, 31 and January 1. The prologue and start podium are planned for January 1.
The crews of the KAMAZ-master team participating in the 2022 Dakar:
1. Driver Dmitry Sotnikov – co-driver Ruslan Akhmadeev – mechanic Ilgiz Akhmetzianov.
2. Driver Eduard Nikolaev – co-driver Evgeny Yakovlev – mechanic Vladimir Rybakov.
3. Driver Andrey Karginov – co-driver Andrey Mokeev – mechanic Ivan Malkov.
4. Driver Anton Shibalov – co-driver Dmitrii Nikitin – mechanic Ivan Tatarinov.