#Dakar2021 Day 3 NEWS Kamaz Master Rally Team | Stage 3 Wadi AdDawasir-Wadi AdDawasir

Two KAMAZ trucks got into Top-3 at the third stage of the Dakar 2021

A multi-day marathon is a test not for everyone, and still every year hundreds of racers come to try their hand at the legendary Dakar. But not all contestants withstand the devastating stress on the organism and incredible psychological pressure during passage of a special stage. It also refers to vehicles that cannot cope with severe conditions of the Arabian Peninsula. More than 700 km of off-road special stages with a huge amount of stones and dunes as high as ten-story buildings left the first riders and drivers out of the race.

Losses did not pass by the truck category as well. At the 50 km of the second special stage, Dutch crew of Gert Huzink faced a serious problem - his hybrid off-road truck stopped due to the engine breakdown. The driver requested evacuation and moved to the category Dakar Experience (results of these contestants do not go to the general classification). However, later it became clear that repair of such a unique power unit by efforts of the team's mechanics was not possible in Saudi Arabia. Huzink did not already enter the start of the first loop stage.

It is interesting that a year ago Wadi Ad-Dawasir - a place in the south-west of Saudi Arabia, in hundreds of kilometers from the capital of the kingdom Riyadh - opened the way to the rally caravan to the northern border of the Rub al-Khali desert, stretching for 1200 km along the Arabian Peninsula and being one of the largest in the world. Now the direction of the stage, like the entire Dakar, has changed in the opposite direction. If you look at the route map of the special stage, it has undergone a serious change. However, the organizers were right saying that the 2021 race will take place almost on entirely new "roads".

Like yesterday, the start of the special stage was mixed. Dmitry Sotnikov was the first from his category to drive the hardest 403 km. Airat Mardeev and Siarhei Viazovich entered the distance right after him. The rest representatives of the truck category stretched out in the starting protocol and mixed with cars. The first kilometers of the special stage on the fast sandy plateau gave the started first crews the opportunity to earn an additional time advantage over the rivals, for whom the struggle with high traffic and thick dust came to the fore.

The track of the route already at the 17 km led the racers into a sandy canyon with large stones. An important signal at today’s stage from the organizers was the utmost attentiveness when driving through such areas and navigation. Strong winds quickly covered tracks, adding work to the navigators. And here the ability to find bindings in the area and choose the right course came to the fore. Soft surface of the track, gradually gaining altitude from 800 to 1200 m above sea level and passing through the Wajid plateau, also affected fuel consumption.

A beautiful struggle for the result started from the first kilometers. The multi-ton trucks of Sotnikov and Viazovich were separated by a few seconds at each waypoint. The first half of the distance was shown by the overall leader, after which Anton Shibalov joined the fight. The Belarusian driver seized the initiative in the middle of the special stage - at the 262 km mark his MAZ was ahead of Sotnikov’s KAMAZ by 4 seconds. Already at 354 km, the Russian won 5 seconds over the rival, but at the finish he still lost 18 seconds. The time of the stage winner was 3 hours 45 minutes 14 seconds. But the Dutchman Maurik van den Heuvel, who started the seventh Dakar in his career, had a bad luck - his Scania rolled onto the roof on one of the dunes.