Reigning Silk Way Rally truck champion Dmitry Sotnikov holds the upper hand over his Team Kamaz Master rivals as the arduous week-long event heads into its final two stages.
Here is all you need to know:
– After starting out in Astrakhan by the Caspian Sea, the weather turned as torrential rain played havoc with race crews looking to get the better of this Eurasian off-road adventure.
– Organisers eventually had to step in to cut short the planned route between Elista and Astrakhan as the marathon stage was turned into a gruelling slog through the mud.
– Sotnikov managed to dig deep to keep his truck defence on track from his team-mate Andrey Karginov with Airat Mardeev poised in third should anything happen to the two up front.
– The 33-year-old said: “On stage four we had to stop because of problems with the electrics and that’s when we saw we had a broken shock absorber and were losing water. We were able to quickly fix the shock absorber problem and then asked Andrey (Karginov) to stop and give us some water because it was very hot. We didn’t stop him for too long though.”
– In the car category, Qatar’s Nasser Al-Attiyah has battled huge technical problems to stay on course for a tremendous podium place after losing four-wheel drive on his Toyota Hilux.
– The two-time Dakar Rally champion and French co-driver Mathieu Baumel sit behind Saudi Arabian leader Yazeed Al-Rajhi’s MINI, who is looking to improve on his 2016 runner-up spot.
– Al-Attiyah, 47, revealed: “We’ve had trouble shaking off this reoccurring problem with the rear differential. On a couple of stages it has stopped working after about 100 kilometres of racing. It’s not something you can repair when you’re out on the stage.”
– The field still faces nearly 1,000km over the last two stages until they can take a well-earned rest with the final stage finishing up in Moscow’s famous Red Square.
Car results after stage five of seven
1. Yazeed Al-Rahji (SAU) MINI 19:04:32
2. Mathieu Serradori (FRA) MCM +01:14:07
3. Nasser Al-Attiyah (QAT) Toyota +01:27:23
Truck results after stage five of seven
1. Dmitry Sotnikov (RUS) Kamaz 20:35:38
2. Andrey Karginov (RUS) Kamaz +00:00:44
3. Airat Mardeev (RUS) Kamaz +00:11:44
Source: Red Bull Content Pool