KAMAZ continues Silk Way reign, Mazepin scores class victory

KAMAZ-master is the master when it comes to truck rally raid programmes, and they continued to flex their muscles at the Silk Way Rally. The team’s quartet dominated the ten-stage event with Dmitry Sotnikov scoring his fourth Silk Way win and second in a row.

Wuth the exception of Tatra in 2011, the team has won the SWR’s T4 (Truck) category every year since the inaugural event in 2009. KAMAZ trucks won every stage in their class: Sotnikov claimed the most with four, Eduard Nikolaev took three, and Andrey Karginov scored the last three. By the end, Sotnikov’s time of 31:33:44 was the best of the race’s forty-three entrants while Nikolaev, whose run was effectively killed when he suffered a major gearbox failure following a ford crossing in Stage #8, was third overall and second in class at 32:43:28. The Belarusian MAZ-Sportauto of Sergey Vyazovich finished third in T4.

Despite Karginov’s stage wins, he was relegated to eighth in class due to a disastrous Stage #4 in which his KAMAZ-43509 lost its right-front wheel and its gearbox, followed by a broken axle and driveshaft. The fourth KAMAZ driver Sergey Kupriyanov, who was in a diesel/gasoline truck, was fourth in class.

The Mini of Denis Krotov finished second overall to win the Cars (T1) class, continuing a strong Silk Way stretch for him after finishing runner-up in 2021. Krotov faced a brief scare during the eighth stage when he drove over dry grass which ignited in his brakes, forcing firefighters to extinguish it with a hose.

Although Krotov was outclassed by Vladimir Vasilyev who won the first six stages, mechanical trouble in Stages #7 and #10 eliminated him from the win and he had to settle for third behind Krotov and Alexander Rusanov. Even Rusanov’s rally was far from clean as Stage #8 began with his GAZelle NEXT getting stuck in the stand.

Perhaps the most high-profile victor comes in T3 (SSV) as ex-Formula One driver Nikita Mazepin won in his début Silk Way just months after switching to rally raid. He battled with Dakar Rally veteran Anastasia Nifontova across the ten legs before breaking through to win Stage #7. A runner-up to SNAG Racing team-mate Sergei Kariakin in the tenth stage sealed the win for him over Armen Puzyan by forty seconds.

“Compared to Formula One, there is only one common thing: a steering wheel and four wheels,” Mazepin told TASS. “It was very hot, it was very difficult, and it was a real test. I’m incredibly glad that I managed to win.”

In T2 (production), Dmitry Voronov beat back a fleet of Nissan Patrol entries representing the Federation Automobile Sports of Turkmenistan, but the Turkmen won out with Toylyev Merdan as Voronov suffered early mechanical problems that took him off the podium.

The Moto and Quad classes, which did not run Stage #7 due to rain, featured first-time winners in Alexey Naumov and Dmitry Kalinin, respectively.

Although the Silk Way Rally is the biggest rally raid in Russia with global prestige as a former round of the FIA World Cup for Cross-Country Rallies, international sanctions against the country for its invasion of Ukraine resulted in a significantly smaller and less diverse field as every competitor was Russian, Belarusian, or Turkmen (Yulia Bielich of Serbia won the Grand Tour, though it is a non-racing side event that follows the rally akin to Safari categories in North American desert series or the Dakar Classic). Russia and Belarus were such key players in the Russo-Ukrainian war that the FIA imposed massive penalties on both nations like cancelling sanctioned events and requiring drivers to race under neutral flags; besides losing his F1 seat, Mazepin was sanctioned by the European Union. Turkmenistan, a former Soviet state, does not lend aid to Russia for the invasion but is friendly.

While the course layout was revealed prior to the invasion, its fallout meant the decision to host the rally exclusively in Russia was perhaps well timed, though neighbouring Kazakhstan lost its World Rally-Raid Championship date as a result of the conflict. Russian state-owned gas provider PJSC Gazprom, who partnered with KAMAZ to build Kupriyanov’s truck, signed a contract extension with the SWR through 2024, which the company explained was to strengthen ties with China and Mongolia, both of which have hosted SWR legs in the past with the latter doing so in 2021.

Class winners