Andrey Karginov took the first victory on the Dakar stage since 2020

The flooding situation of the bivouac in Al-Artawiyah received further development. Heavy rain that hit this region in Saudi Arabia forced the organizers to make changes to the itinerary. The second and third stages of the Dakar 2022 were planned as marathon ones, what means that the crews and riders had to lead the maintenance of vehicles on their own, without outside help, in the bivouac on Monday. Now it was decided on the new status of the two stages: the special stages will be held according to the usual rules. 

Thus, after finishing on the second 338-kilometer special stage in Al-Artawiyah, the rally caravan went to the bivouac in Al-Qaisumah. Today's stage for Dakar Classic category was even canceled.

Difficult navigation on the starting stage of the rally-marathon has also received loud publicity in the comments of the Dakar participants. Both novices and veterans of the rally-raids spoke toughly about the organizers. Dozens of crews and bike riders spent several hours trying to find a hidden waypoint among many tracks left from the local population, but wandering within a radius of several kilometers back and forth did not lead to solution of the difficult puzzle. The result was completion of the special stage in pitch darkness. Not everyone managed quickly to get out of the trap: many riders not only received 15-minute penalties for missing the point, but also lost more than two hours in this labyrinth - precious time in the struggle for high positions in the Dakar. But these are realities of the harsh race in extreme conditions.

Temporary penalization made adjustments to the results of the first stage. On Sunday the Czech Ales Loprais on his Praga showed the third best result in the truck classification, being ahead of the KAMAZ-master representatives Anton Shibalov and Andrey Karginov, who lost 20 minutes due to the above-described navigation problem. A quarter of an hour, that were added to the “penalties” column, dropped Loprais to the fifth position and allowed the Russian team to take the first four places again, as in the prologue. All in all, 15-minute penalties were “picked up” by 14 crews, including Martin Macik, Janus van Kasteren, Richard de Groot, Mitchel van den Brink and Martin Soltis.

Crews from Naberezhnye Chelny had to start at the second special stage in a tight mode 11 minutes after the quads. Such a corridor allowed to avoid traffic jam at the beginning of the racing segment and to drive at the maximum pace, trying to increase the gap from the chasers. And passing the route in sight of teammates always guarantees quick mutual support, if it is needed on the track.

The first 20 kilometers passed along fast and not dried up after rain sandy tracks on a large plateau with many barely visible tracks, after which the course lay on winding and hilly roads between small dunes. Today it didn’t go without overcoming dune sections of the first and second levels - low natural obstacles sometimes look like an easy walk until you find yourself on a sandy ridge. The maximum concentration of the entire crew is extremely important at this moment to avoid getting stuck or, much worse, overturning the truck.

Having passed even minimal difficulties (we will not count the loss of 30-40 seconds in loose sands by Eduard Nikolaev), all KAMAZ-master crews overcame the distance successfully and once again occurred in the top 4. Andrey Karginov won his first special stage on the Dakar 2022 and the 16^th in his career, taking the lead from the start and not allowing any of the competitors to approach him - 3 hours 52 minutes 7 seconds. The two-time Dakar champion has not won in Saudi Arabia since 2020. The second best time was shown by the overall leader in the truck classification Dmitry Sotnikov, who lost only 38 seconds, the top three was closed by Eduard Nikolaev with a gap of 2 minutes 14 seconds. Anton Shibalov in the last part of the special stage was able to win back several positions and finished with the fourth result.

Dmitry Sotnikov, driver of crew No 500: “Our crew started and finished first. A sandy special stage. In the first half of it there were more high-speed sections, and in the second a complete impassibility started with dunes of the first and second levels, overgrown with grass, with unpleasant wet sand. Therefore, the average pace turned out ragged. We have not experienced navigational difficulties today."

Eduard Nikolaev, driver of crew No 505: “There were beautiful landscapes and dunes. Throughout the route there were difficult high and viscous dunes, the sand was wet. Almost the whole day we were driving together with Andrey in Dima’s field of vision. In one place we got stuck in sticky sand, but got out on our own – we lost 30-40 seconds, but this is not critical. Thanks to the organizers for such an interesting and eventful stage.”

Anton Shibalov, driver of crew No 501: “Today there were fewer stones, but more dunes with wet sand. But this did not make it easier for anyone. It is difficult for trucks to overcome such a surface. Steep dunes, on which one had to be extremely careful, added additional complexity. But such conditions are typical for Saudi Arabia. We drove without any incident today – there were no problems with navigation, tires remained whole, the vehicle did not let us down either.”

The third stage of the 44^th edition of the Dakar Rally will take place on Tuesday. The length of the special stage along the Al-Qaisumah - Al-Qaisumah route will be 255 kilometers.

Truck category. Results of the second stage. Top 10

Truck category. General Classification after the second stage. Top 10

Photo by DPPI, Redbullcontentpool