On the 15th October on the press-conference in Naberezhnye Chelny the Head of KAMAZ-master team Vladimir Chagin announced drivers, who will contest in the Dakar Rally 2021. The meeting was held in KAMAZ-master sports center at the traditional press-tour for the Russian mass-media and the team partners.
The drivers Andrey Karginov and Anton Shibalov carried a test drive for the mass media representatives, after which the mass media representatives moved to the team’s sports center, where the main news of the press-conference was a discussion how the year passed for the team and how the preparation for the new sports season was going on.
Currently the team preparation process to the Dakar Rally 2021 came to the finishing stage. On the 1st and 2nd December preliminary scrutineering and loading of the contestants’ vehicles to the ferry, heading to the Arabian Peninsula, will take place in the French city of Marceille.
The 43rd Dakar will start on the 3rd January from the Red Sea coast from Jeddah. On the 9th January the contestants will have a rest day in Ha’il and finally after a big loop through the deserts of the Arabian Peninsula, the race caravan will return the Red Sea coast to finish in Jeddah on the 15th January.
KAMAZ-master Team will apply 4 racing trucks KAMAZ-43509. Shortly the team management will completely decide on the crew composition. Currently names of the drivers, applying for the Dakar 2021, are confirmed. Russia in the truck category will be represented by the crews of the defending Dakar champion Andrey Karginov, the winner of the Silk Way Rally 2019 Anton Shibalov, as well as crews of Airat Mardeev and Dmitry Sotnikov.
As it is commonly known, annually in accordance with the planned rotation, one of the five drivers of KAMAZ-master team misses the race. This time by the decision of the team management it was defined that Eduard Nikolaev’s crew will not take part in it, but not less responsible task will be imposed on the five-time Dakar winner. On the race he will assist the head of the team Vladimir Chagin in all organization and technical tasks. Mainly these functions were performed by Sergei Savostin, who this time will coordinate the personnel from the head office in Naberezhnye Chelny and at the same time focus on preparation of the new sports equipment to the next sports season.
The Head of the team Vladimir Chagin remarks that the absence of Sergei Savostin on the race will certainly add him extra work, but he is sure that Eduard will do all possible in order to be useful and efficient in the new role. And an administrative work experience will not go amiss for the pilot.
“There were concerns that we won’t be able to apply four crews, there may be only three or two, because the financial difficulties, that business structure in our country and in the world faced with, affected sports as well. The big sports, professional sports is supported by partners. We are thankful to all our partners that despite the hard financial situation, their losses in business, they tried not to rearrange it on us. Thanks to their support we can apply four crews for the Dakar”, - noted Vladimir Chagin.
Immediately after return from the Dakar-2020 the production shop concentrated on finishing works of traditional cabover truck KAMAZ-43509 model, successfully proved itself during the race. Works on modification and improvement of the racing trucks characteristics which were held annually in order to keep up with the rivals, continued, although not in the scopes, planned early this year. The self-isolation due to the pandemic COVID19 and difficult financial situation slowed down some plans, including work on production of the modified bonnet truck.
The Arabian Peninsula, where the January race will take place, has its own geographic and climate peculiarities. These very factors became main during composition of modernization program for current KAMAZ sports trucks.
For example, constantly changing parts of impassibility and zones of the dune crossing areas put special requirements for the truck dynamics. The trucks have pumping system, that helps to overcome such obstacles. And reduces risks of getting stuck in loose sands or a tire explosion due to overheating. But these systems are not very efficient. Considering restrictions on finishing production-line products, specified by the technical regulations, works to reduce the time for boosting pressure in tires.
A large block of changes in the truck design is associated with lowering the gravity center and improving dynamics. The team has many developments in the field of reducing unsprung masses and moments of inertia, but, unfortunately, not all solutions can be applied due to high costs of their implementation, as well as due to the changing technical regulations of FIA, which are adopted for the planned 2022 Truck Category of the World Cross-Country Rally Championship. Technical regulations are updated every 5-7 years and, as a rule, implementation of changes entails alterations in vehicles for teams and significant financial costs. Last year passed in the mode of close discussion of its points by the specialists of teams and technical stewards. The Technical Director of the team, Vladimir Guba, takes an important part in this work.
Technical problems, that happened in Saudi Arabia, required to increase reliability of separate engine units. Engineers experimented with various new materials and engineering solutions.
Also engineers of the team actively mastered the aerodynamics area and dynamics of the air flow for cooling various truck systems. Faults in this direction became the reason of the time loss on the first day of the Dakar 2020.
Adjustment of the trucks and setup of systems were carried out during the stage of the Russian Rally-Raid Championship, that was held in September in Astrakhan, as well as mountainous tests of the team in Kabardino-Balkaria.
Quotes
Vladimir Chagin, Head of KAMAZ-master racing team
The legendary Dakar, the competition for the person’s endurance and reliability of the vehicles is ahead. This year all of us appeared in the new situation, when there was possibility to train enough, there was no possibility to enter new engineering modifications to the trucks in order to improve them as we had done in previous years. The pandemic COVID19 first of all affected sports, culture, all events were postponed or cancelled. But, nevertheless we are in good spirits, preparing for the start. Currently there are five strong crews, five pilots in the team. All drivers are of equally high level, it delights that it is a strong tight-knit five. For the Dakar we had to choose four crews that will defend the colors of KAMAZ master and national automotive industry. The decision was not easy. This year Eduard Nikolaev and all his crew respectively will temporarily leave the wheel of the racing truck. Eduard will help me on the race to make organizational and technical decisions. I think that his long-term experience of a mechanic, a driver will help him. The Dakar requires to take correct decisions extremely fast, only then you will be a champion.
Andrey Karginov, driver
The progress forges ahead, the first try to complicate navigation was done on the Dakar 2020, when the road books were given only before the start of the SS. This year the organisers went further in order to complicate and diverse the race, put everyone on equal footing and decided to enter electronic road-book. We were waiting, that sooner or later this novelty will come. Considering that our navigators are strong, have large driving experience, I think that they will cope with this task perfectly.
Eduard Nikolaev, driver
For me it is a new challenge. I will do all possible and impossible in order to be useful to the team in the new role to have a good result. I will watch the race from the side, how it is like from the manager’s view. A lot of our drivers went through this role, our Firdaus Kabirov, Gerard De Rooy, Jordy Viladoms from KTM… We made a pause but then returned and I think that our crew has a lot ahead.
Airat Mardeev, driver
I missed the last Dakar, acted as a press-car driver, I watched the race from the outside and certainly after the missed Dakar we wanted to return to the cab a lot, we set our crew an aim to increase our pace. And when we heard the news that we were going, we were very happy. Hope that we will show a decent result.
