18
Янв
2017

Dakar 2017, Stage 12: Nikolaev leads Kamaz 1-2 in trucks

Eduard Nikolaev secured his second Dakar Rally trucks title, leading home teammate Dmitry Sotnikov in a one-two for the Russian Kamaz marque.

Nikolaev, whose first title came in 2013, spent the entire 2017 edition of the rally bar the first two stages in the top three overall.

After leading Stage 3, Nikolaev dropped behind first Sotnikov then defending champion Gerard de Rooy (Iveco).

The Dutchman led as the first week ended, but quickly dropped behind the aforementioned Kamaz duo with a puncture on the eighth stage, before losing further time to navigational difficulties on Stage 10.

Sotnikov led again for two days but Nikolaev set the pace on Stages 10 and 11, giving him a 17-minute lead before the final sprint stage in Rio Cuarto.

He collected his fourth stage win of the weekend in the final run, and scored Kamaz’s 14th title in the process, beating Sotnikov by just under 19 minutes.

Sotnikov recorded his best Dakar result in second place, followed by Iveco duo de Rooy and Federico Villagra, who were 41 minutes and an hour down on Nikolaev respectively.

Ayrat Mardeev brought a third Kamaz into the top five, recording the lowest-placed finish of his Dakar career.

18
Авг
2016

Kamaz vs. Volkswagen – Rallye Finnland ‘Ouninpohja’

Kamaz vs. Volkswagen – Rallye Finnland ‘Ouninpohja’

Ouninpohja, Finland. A special stage so compellingly awesome that Colin McRaeeven named his racehorse after it. But recently, some very different types of horses tackled the heart-in-the-mouth crests that make this legendary Rally Finland road unique.

On the one hand, the 318-horsepower Volkswagen Polo R WRC: a car that has won in Finland three times. Then, more unusually, the iconic Kamaz 4326 truck that is the undisputed King of the Dakar, with close to 1000-horsepower. On a narrow road in the middle of nowhere. Featuring an enormous jump.

At the wheel of the Polo was ‘Flying Finn’ Jari-Matti Latvala: just like his car, a three-time Rally Finland winner. Close behind him in the Kamaz was Russia’s Ayrat Mardeev, who won the Dakar truck category in 2015 and claimed a podium finish on two further occasions. Most recently, he emerged with a truck win in the Silk Way Rally from Moscow to China last month. So a 10-tonne truck versus a one-tonne car, with a 16.5-litre diesel engine doing battle against a 1.6-litre turbo petrol.

Watch Kamaz and Volkswagen do battle on Rally Finland’s iconic Ouninpohja stage.

The inhabitants of Ouninpohja are of course used to encountering high-powered machinery screaming past their front doors: especially the occupants of the well-known Yellow House, which marks the launchpad for one of the biggest jumps in the sport. But they had never seen anything quite like this before – courtesy of two of Red Bull’s top offroad stars.

Who remembers Stephen Spielberg’s famous 1971 film Duel, in which a car driven by an increasingly desperate Dennis Weaver is pursued by an avenging truck? Well, Latvala and Mardeev just took that concept to a whole new level, with the Kamaz relentlessly hunting down the Volkswagen on the stage.