G-Force Motorsport

Dakar 3013. Stage 12: KAMAZ trio on the top!

Friday, 18 January 2013 00:31

Now Dakar is back to Chile! Stage 12 brought good news to Russian fans: now top three lines in trucks are occupied with KAMAZ! The most remarkable in cars is Nani Roma’s  (#305) gain of line 3 in overall. The cancellation of the greatest part of the special yesterday mixed up all the positions in a fantastic way but most of crews were not embarrassed with that. G-Force Motorsport crews are among them. Vladimir Vasilyev and Vitaliy Yevtyekhov (#331) though they had to change a wheel and fight their way through dust finished 12th. Boris Gadasin and Alexey Kuzmich (#348) had to stop in dunes to fix some mechanical problem and then to change two wheels, and they finished 14th. However let’s listen to the crews.

Boris Gadasin (driver #348): I remember nothing… Ah, was there anything? Oh, yeah… A very interesting special again. First sharp rocks, then soft sand, then rocks again. By the way, very unusual sand, I never met such a type of it. And unusual dunes, unreadable for me. That’s why we were driving very carefully in dunes. But one cooler went out of order and we had to stop to repair it. We also had two punctures in general, at the beginning of the special and in the end. Nevertheless, we do our job – keep going on stable and safe. The main goal is to reach finish.

Alexey Kuzmich (co-driver #348): The excellent special! The organizers deserve the Golden Bedouin for this! A complicated navigation and very interesting tracks. Lots of crossroads and incredible amount of spectators as usual. At that, those spectators did not stay still in groups (in this case you can use them as waymarks), they were moving hither and thither along and across all the ways and spoiling the tracks. It was quite impossible to get oriented! Just the brain blowup! And Boris was not just driving, he was blasting, so I had too little time to make my mind about the right way. Next, after such a beautiful part, there were river beds with huge rocks. We got a puncture. Then came quite a straight way, we could drive flat out and win some margin. After that the road book led us into dunes and great ergs with altitude differences up to 1500 meters. About 20 kilometers before finish Novitskiy caught up with us. We were curious to go behind him for a while, to learn how he was driving and navigating – it’s fantastic! Then the ordinary off-road part started and we began to catch up with him but missed a rock in the dust and got one more puncture. While we were changing the wheel, Mardeev passed by, and the dust behind his “house” did not let us drive fast enough. We had to follow him the last 10 kilometres of the special. All those 4 hours passed as quick as a minute. If all the specials were like that one, then all the rally could be much more interesting!


Vitaliy Yevtyekhov (co-driver #331): Yesterday organizers cancelled the special and mixed up all the starting positions in a strange way, so we had to start somewhere far behind, about 38th position. Due to this, the first part was very difficult for us: quite a fast track, and we had to overtake cars one by  one in thick dust. Later in dunes it was easier, although the dunes were not very simple. But except dust and a puncture, everything is OK, we drive calmly and quite normally. Everything goes as planned…

The first today is Nani Roma (#305) who leads Leonid Novitskiy (#307) by 3.5 minutes in overall. Will this continue long? Scarcely Leonid can surrender without a fight. The second is Robby Gordon (#315) who moved up from 16th to 19th thanks to the finish result.

At the end of the day, the first ten cars standing looks as follows:

Pos. Name Mark Time variation Penalty
1 302 PETERHANSEL (FRA) MINI 32:50:02 - -
COTTRET (FRA)
2 301 DE VILLIERS (ZAF) TOYOTA 33:40:23 0:50:21 -
VON ZITZEWITZ (DEU)
3 305 ROMA (ESP) MINI 34:21:08 1:31:06 -
PÉRIN (FRA)
4 307 NOVITSKIY (RUS) MINI 34:24:49 1:34:47 -
ZHILTSOV (RUS)
5 313 TERRANOVA (ARG) BMW 34:51:52 2:01:50 -
FIUZA (PRT)
6 308 SOUSA (PRT) GREAT WALL 35:29:48 2:39:46 -
RAMALHO (PRT)
7 316 CHABOT (FRA) SMG 35:53:13 3:03:11 0:01:00
PILLOT (FRA)
8 309 CHICHERIT (FRA) SMG 36:32:53 3:42:51 -
GARCIN (FRA)
9 328 THOMASSE (FRA) BUGGY MD RALLYE 37:04:28 4:14:26 -
LARROQUE (FRA)
10 337 OLHOLM (AUS) TOYOTA 37:19:13 4:29:11 -
ASTON (GBR)
17 331 VASILJEV (RUS) G-FORCE PROTO 38:51:44 6:01:42 -
YEVTYEKHOV (UKR)
20 348 GADASIN (RUS) G-FORCE PROTO 40:18:41 7:28:39 -
KUZMICH (UKR)

Full results in cars after 12 stages >>>

There’ s a Russian hat-trick in trucks today! After 12 days the three KAMAZ trucks are leading!

 Trucks results after 12 stages (first ten):

1 501 NIKOLAEV (RUS) KAMAZ 33:12:35 - -
SAVOSTIN (RUS)
RYBAKOV (RUS)
2 505 MARDEEV (RUS) KAMAZ 33:43:55 0:31:20 -
BELYAEV (RUS)
MIRNIY (RUS)
3 510 KARGINOV (RUS) KAMAZ 34:03:01 0:50:26 -
DEVYATKIN (RUS)
MOKEEV (RUS)
4 506 KOLOMY (CZE) TATRA 34:05:37 0:53:02 -
KILIÁN (CZE)
KILIAN (CZE)
5 500 DE ROOY (NLD) IVECO 34:08:57 0:56:22 -
COLSOUL (BEL)
RODEWALD (NLD)
6 503 LOPRAIS (CZE) TATRA 34:38:20 1:25:45 -
BRUYNKENS (BEL)
PUSTĚJOVSKÝ (CZE)
7 509 VERSLUIS (NLD) MAN 35:01:57 1:49:22 0:01:00
SCHUURMANS (NLD)
DAMEN (BEL)
8 514 KUIPERS (NLD) IVECO 36:12:43 3:00:08 -
VAN EERD (NLD)
TORRALLARDONA (ESP)
9 511 VAN DEN BRINK (NLD) GINAF 36:18:48 3:06:13 -
WILLEMSEN (BEL)
VEENVLIET (NLD)
10 502 VAN VLIET (NLD) MAN 36:25:11 3:12:36 -
KLEIN (DEU)
PRONK (NLD)

Full results in trucks after 12 stages>>>

There will be no story about bikes and quads today but it worth quoting Cyril Despres (#1) who is leading in bikes: It was also important for me today to try and help Ruben (Ruben Faria, # 11). He's been helping me for the Dakar 2010, 2011, 2012 and also 2013, so today I decided to help him to try and stay in second place overall. I think he did well and I'm happy for us.

Quads standings after stage 12>>>

Bikes standings after stage 12>>>


Tomorrow the participants are to meet Atacama desert… The rout map shows the complexity of the special that includes mountains and ever-dry dunes as well as the altitudes changes. 90 kilometers of liaison, 441 kilometers of special and 204 more kilometers to the bivouac in La Serena are awaiting for them.

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Photo: G-Force Motorsport, Michail Lastochkin and www.dakar.com