Dakar results. The triumph of Russian racers in the Dakar rally: the victory of ATVs and the double success of truck crews. "Dakar" cost no casualties

At the beginning of the release, good news from Buenos Aires. There was the finish of the Dakar rally, and our athletes have a double victory. Firstly, in the standings of trucks, there were no equal crews of KamAZ-Master. The Russians have both gold and silver. And secondly, everyone is discussing the success of Sergey Karyakin. The full namesake of our chess player did not leave his opponents a chance and became the best on an ATV.

Sergey Karyakin, who won the Dakar rally, was the only Russian out of 37 participants entered in the ATV class. Karjakin is not really a novice. Moreover, he was one of the favorites of the current season, participating in three Dakars since 2014. But before that, the best result is only seventh place.

Sergey Karyakin was preparing for this race in the sands in the snows of Yekaterinburg. In the same place, in his hometown, he assembled and improved his car, and he told in detail on his page on the Internet how everything happened. For example, I had to completely replace the gas tank so that there was enough fuel for the stages of the race. I took 56 spare wheels with me alone. After each stage, I had to change all four at once.

There were also workouts in the gym. To ride in the sand, according to the experience of past races, I had to strengthen my hands by hitting the wheel with sledgehammers. These classes then helped at the stages repeatedly. “I got a little tired at the end, not only tired, but already tired of such a jitter. The suspension overheated later. There were very large boulders on the road. The last moment the front bumper hit the rut. It’s still hot outside, 48 degrees,” said the winner.

Sergey Karyakin is the namesake of our famous grandmaster, who recently fought for the world champion crown. Moreover, both Sergey were born in January, however, with a difference of a year. The famous chess player - in 1990, and the current winner of the Dakar - in 1991. By the way, his birthday is very soon, on the 25th.

In the standings of ATVs, the Russian became the best for the first time in the history of this race. And it has been running since 1979.

But they are pumping the champion of Dakar-2017 pilot Eduard Nikolaev. Together with his co-drivers Yevgeny Yakovlev and Vladimir Rybakov, he returned the first place to KamAZ, which the team had lost last season.

“In fact, this year the Dakar has changed. Last year it was faster, this year it is real. As it is called the Paris-Dakar rally. Thanks to our team. Many thanks to the mechanics for the fruitful work. For the whole year of work,” said Eduard Nikolaev.

Despite the name "Dakar", the rally has not been held for many years either in the city of Dakar or in the territory of African Senegal in general. Since 2008, this competition, once invariably started in Paris, was moved to South America due to the threat of terrorist attacks. This year, happy for both Sergey Karyakin and the KamAZ team, another crew of which took second place, the route passed through Paraguay, Argentina and Bolivia.

This time, this difficult multi-day off-road race did without tragic incidents. Although there were falls, and injuries, and overturned cars, and even a motorcyclist hit by a truck, whom the riders themselves took to the hospital.

In general, in the entire history of the Dakar, 71 people died. The last death happened in 2015, when a Polish motorcycle racer lost in the sands was found only a few days after the completion of the next stage. He died of dehydration.

The organizers have already recognized the tears of our motorcycle racer Anastasia Nifontova as the most touching moment of the rally. At one of the stages, she fell and was unable to lift the motorcycle. According to the rules, cameramen did not have the right to help her - only the participants in the race. But they all passed by. Everyone except the Frenchman Gregory Mora. However, this help did not affect the final result of Anastasia. She, unlike our men, never got to the prize-winning place.

Rally "Dakar" has long been irrelevant to Africa and Dakar. And the current Dakar is farther and farther away from the classic races in the desert. The next race raised more questions than answers about the future of the rally-raid.

In 2009, the rally world split. After the cancellation of Dakar 2008 due to the threat of terrorist attacks, the promoter made a strong-willed decision to hold the race in South America. Beautifully telling the fans that the decision is temporary, and the race will return to Africa as soon as it becomes safer, a new era of the famous marathon started in Buenos Aires.
In parallel with the new Dakar, the brainchild of Oriol and Schlesser, the Africa Race marathon, started along the old route.
This situation has been preserved in the current season - the races were held in parallel. The African race again turned out to be not rich in big names, and the South American race, as usual, received a shock dose of criticism.

Why criticize Dakar?

The entire new history of Dakar has been criticized for the inconsistency between the name and the venue. This sad and funny point will not go anywhere as long as the marathon is not held on a classic track, but it is no longer possible to return to the roots - Africa Eco Race takes place in the sands of Mauritania and Senegal, and no one needs two races in the same region and at the same time.
The stalemate is aggravated by the fact that motorsport stars, tired of ill-conceived routes, domestic inconveniences and strange decisions of the organizers, now and then declare themselves for the African race.
Claims to the route all these years sound the same - instead of sand dunes, the marathon passes through rocky plateaus and semi-deserts, high mountains. This forced the teams to change the usual technique, develop new technical solutions, adjust the machines to certain conditions. The situation, when some brands have an advantage in the highlands, others in the plains, leads to the fact that it is easy to predict the group of leaders at each stage.
The final touch to the sad portrait of the once great marathon should be considered the desire to certainly hold the Dakar in historical terms - the first two weeks of the new year. And everything would be fine, but at this time in South America the rainy season. And every year, one or two stages are canceled, and a few more are shortened, due to weather conditions.
However, the Dakar is still the most representative rally raid. The legendary name behind it still serves as both a visiting card for spectators and a bait for the strongest rally drivers.

Final report.

This year the marathon did not present a tense struggle to the finish line in any of the classes. The intrigue was killed by gatherings, technical problems, fines.
In the class of trucks at the Dakar, the question has been the same for many years - who will be able to fight with KAMAZ trucks? The answer, for many years, is still the same - Gerard de Rooy. The Iveco rider fought the favorites with dignity this year as well, but several punctures in a row did not allow him to rise above third place, more than forty minutes behind.
KAMAZ, after last year's second place, returned to the top again - the crew of Nikolaev / Yakovlev / Rybakov brought eighteen minutes to the second KAMAZ crew (Sotnikov / Leonov / Akhmadeev).
Of the other results, the confident performance of the MAZ drivers should be noted (sixth place, the crew of Alexander Vasilevsky).
The top of the classification of passenger cars, in the absence of Toyota leaders who left at the beginning of the race, was occupied by the French. Peugeot drivers got the whole pedestal - Stefan Peterhansel won his thirteenth Dakar, the nine-time world rally champion Sebastian Loeb finished second, Cyril Deprez was third.
The only Russian crew, Sergei Shikhotarov and Oleg Uperenko, finished outside the top ten, thirty-seventh, with fourteen penalty hours and a total delay of thirty-three hours.
In the motorcycle class, expectedly after the fines from Honda, the entire podium was taken by riders from KTM, Sunderland, Walkner, Guell.
Alexander Ivanyutin finished 32nd at Huskvarna, the heroic Anastasia Nifontova also finished 75th at Huskvarna.
In the ATV class, in the absence of the Petronelli brothers, there was practically no struggle. No one could compete with the only Russian who entered this class. Sergey Karyakin (Yamaha) brought the second place, Ignacio Casale (also Yamaha) an hour and a little more. Pablo Copetti (Yamaha again), who finished third, lost to the leader for more than four hours.
In the new UTV class for Dakar (closed ATVs with a car seat, most reminiscent of buggies), the crew of Torres / Roldan (Brazil, Polaris) won, Wujian / Wei (China, Polaris) finished second, Maganov / Shubin (Russia, Polaris). All five crews, declared in this category, safely reached the finish line.

Perspectives.

Perhaps this victory of KAMAZ is the last, and in the coming years blue cars will not appear on the Dakar. From next year, the technical regulations for trucks will change, and Chelny residents simply do not have an engine for the new rules. At the moment, there is not even a clause in the rules about performing with a “strangled” old engine, and it remains either to urgently look for new engines (for rent, for a lot of money and with restrictions on use), remake equipment for them, or skip the next raid on South America, focusing on the "Africa Eco Race", working in parallel on a new engine.
There is no doubt that the race will again be heavily criticized, and once again deserved. Apparently, the organizers of the Dakar rely so much on the magic of the sign that they do not pay due attention to accompanying the race. Inconsistent judicial decisions, frequent changes in technical regulations, problems with the organization of the life of racing teams. It comes to the point that in the roadmaps of navigators there are phrases “at the crossroads, turn where you think is right.”
The act of Hans Stacey, who withdrew from the race after the organizers made a mistake with the starting place of the rider, showed that the organizers are ready to tolerate such behavior and try to hush up the scandal. It is highly likely that in the future such decisions will be made by other participants who have suffered from the arbitrariness of the judges, and this is not at all good for the reputation of the rally-raid.
Dakar in its current form is criticized more and more every year, not only by professionals, but also by ordinary fans. And if nothing changes in the attitude of the organizers of the race to their offspring, then in a couple of years the attention of all the media will again be riveted to the sands of Mauritania and Senegal, but not to the returned Dakar, but to the Africa Eco Race passing there.

A fiery start to the year: On January 2, 2017, hundreds of the best racers from all over the world took to the start of the largest South American rally raid, the Dakar. According to the organizers, this start promised to be one of the most difficult in the history of the competition. Two weeks later, it became not only the most difficult, but also the most successful in the history of our country.

Russian racers competed in all five race classes (motorcycles, quad bikes, SUVs, ATVs, trucks). In two offsets, the Russians won, in another they took bronze. But first things first.

Already at the first stage in Asuncion, Paraguay, on a short 39-kilometer special stage, participants and experts realized that this season the Dakar would definitely be unpredictable. Outsiders from the start began to push the leaders and seized the initiative, the cars were on fire, the route surprised the navigators. All this meant one thing: the off-road marathon would be interesting, and therefore it was definitely worth following the rally online. Moreover, all the brightest news from South America was published on the VTB Bank website - vtbrussia.ru, since the Bank has been the general sponsor of the KAMAZ-Master rally team since 2005.

"Dakar-2017" will be remembered, first of all, by what the competition was like at the first stages. A number of crews claimed the podium, the first place. The competition was very high. Also this year, the emphasis was not on the tracks of the classic rally, as in the previous two years, but on real, real off-road. Indeed, at each finish of the special stage, the pilots and the crews have interesting impressions. "Dakar" turns out good. I think that the organizers have prepared well,” said Vladimir Chagin, head of the KAMAZ-master team.

Two Russians competed in the motorcycle class - Alexander Ivanyutin and Anastasia Nifontova. In an insanely difficult race, the guys did not give up and, in spite of everything, reached the finish line. In the general qualification, Ivanyutin took 31st place, Nifontova became 73rd.

After the motorcycles on the "Dakar" ATVs started. Here, Russia was represented by 25-year-old Sergey Karyakin, who, according to the results of the first stage, was almost 20 minutes behind the leader, but in the end he sensationally won the rally marathon, ahead of the nearest pursuer by one hour 14 minutes 51 seconds, which is a lot for this class.

In the off-road category, the entire podium was taken by the French in the Peugeot. The only Russian in these competitions was Sergey Shikhotarov, whose crew took 37th place in the overall standings, losing 33 hours 16 minutes 23 seconds to the leader.

Half of the participants in the smallest class of races - all-terrain vehicles - did not make it to the finish line. However, the Russian crew Ravil Maganov/Kirill Shubin managed to complete the race and took third place.

The closest attention was traditionally riveted to trucks. The Russian team "KAMAZ-Master", which has been in the rally top list for many years, was one of the main contenders for victory this year. Fans and fans of Dakar, ordinary viewers and many sports stars were rooting for KAMAZ trucks.

On this "Dakar" "KAMAZ-Master" was represented by four crews led by pilots Nikolaev, Sotnikov, Mardeev and Shibalov.

"These two weeks have been very tough. Dakar is a marathon, it leaves you no choice but to dose energy throughout all stages. We managed to get stronger and stronger, while other teams started to lose time. We have great leadership. Vladimir Chagin taught us to be so fast," TASS quoted Eduard Nikolaev as saying.

After 12 stages and 9,000 kilometers, KAMAZ-Master proved its strength and skill. The Russians were not stopped by either heavy rains in Bolivia or the sixth stage canceled due to weather conditions. After almost 7,000 kilometers of travel, the gap between the top three rivals was only a few minutes. The decisive factor was the navigational skills of the crew navigators, in which our specialists succeeded. At the 10th stage of the raid, due to the competent actions of navigators Evgeny Yakovlev and Ruslan Akhmadeev, the crews of Eduard Nikolaev and Dmitry Sotnikov managed to increase the lead over their closest rivals, and then maintain the advantage.

In the overall standings of the truck race, 32-year-old Eduard Nikolaev was the first, and the crew of Dmitry Sotnikov won silver. Airat Mardeev stopped a few steps from the podium (in fifth place). After this triumph, the KAMAZ-Master team became the 14-time winner of the Dakar.

"Dakar-2017" - overall standings

Motorcycles:

1. Sam Sunderland (Great Britain, KTM) - 32:06.22

2. Matthias Walkner (Austria, KTM) +0:32.0

3. Gerard Farres Gel (Spain, KTM) +0:35.40

...32. Alexander Ivanyutin (Russia, Husqvarna) +6:17.22

...75. Anastasia Nifontova (Russia, Husqvarna) +17:18.45

ATVs:

1. Sergey Karyakin (Russia, Yamaha) - 39:18.52

2. Ignacio Casale (Chile, Yamaha) +1:14.51

3. Pablo Copetti (Argentina, Yamaha) +4:20.19

SUVs

1. Stefan Peterhansel / Jean-Paul Cottre (France, Peugeot) - 28:49.302

2.Sebastian Loeb/Danielle Elena (France/Monaco, Peugeot) +0:05.13

3. Cyril Despres/David Castera (France, Peugeot) +0:33.28

…37. Sergey Shikhotarov/Oleg Uperenko (Russia/Latvia, Toyota) +33:16:23

ATVs

1. Leandro Torres/Lorival Roldan (Brazil) - 54:01.50

2. Wang Fujian/Li Wei (China) + 4:06.35

3. Ravil Maganov/Kirill Shubin (Russia) + 6:06.35

Trucks

1. Eduard Nikolaev / Evgeny Yakovlev / Vladimir Rybakov (Russia, KAMAZ-Master) - 27:58.24

2. Dmitry Sotnikov/Igor Leonov/Ruslan Akhmadeev (Russia, KAMAZ-Master) +0:18.58

3. Gerard de Rooy / Moises Torrallardona / Darek Rodewald (Netherlands, Spain, Poland, Iveco) +0:41.19

…5. Airat Mardeev/Aidar Belyaev/Dmitry Svistunov (Russia, KAMAZ-Master) +2:16.24

…19. Anton Shibalov/Robert Amatych/Ivan Romanov (Russia, KAMAZ-Master) +9:42.31

Last weekend, the official closing of the Dakar 2017 rally took place. Within 13 days, the athletes overcame 12 special stages located in Bolivia, Paraguay and Argentina.

The main surprises at Dakar 2017 were presented by the weather: after a series of heavy rains, the fifth special stage was shortened and the sixth special stage was cancelled. A few days later, the organizers canceled the most difficult section of the track - SS9, 1000 km long. Due to the rains, a landslide caused by strong winds and heavy rains descended on the village located near the highway. The race management decided not to hold the stage and to provide assistance to those affected by the disaster.

Sam Sandreland, who won first place in the Moto category. Photo - KTM

The winner in the "Bike" class was the British racer Sam Sunderland (Sam Sunderland), who plays for. His teammate Austrian Matthias Walkner is on the second step of the podium. The third place went to the representative of the HIMOINSA Team KTM, the Spaniard Gerard Farres Guell.

Paulo Gonçalves in the Honda CRF450 Rally during SS5. Photo - Honda Racing Team

This year , Russian riders Aleksey Ivanyutin and Anastasia Nifontova made their debut in the Dakar rally on motorcycles . Anastasia, having started from 130th position, was able to move up to 75th place and successfully finish the race. Alexei Ivanyutin finished the race in 32nd place.

Anastasia Nifontova managed to conquer Dakar from the first approach! Photo - Red Bull Content Pool

Not without tragic reshuffles - during the fourth race day, the favorite and winner of last year's Dakar Toby Price (Toby Price) broke his hip as a result of a fall and was forced to abandon the race.

Highlights of the Dakar Rally in the Bike category:

In the Quad class, Sergey Karyakin turned out to be the fastest on the Yamaha Raptor 700. Sergey became the first Russian quad rider to win the Dakar. Second place went to Ignacio Casale, third place went to Argentinean Pablo Copetti.

Video review of the Quad category:

Two Kamaz driven by Eduard Nikolaev and Dmitry Sotnikov burst onto the podium in the truck classification. The crew of Airat Mardeev also got into the top five, lagging behind the leader by 2 hours 26 minutes.

Kamaz under the control of Airat Mardeev. Photo - Kamaz Master

The best moments in the category "Truck":

The crew of Ravil Maganov at the SS5 Dakar Rally 2017. Photo -