Eduard Nikolaev, pilot of crew #500
“A hard day. It was a challenging stage with cunning dunes. They were not so big, but à la Mauritanian and very soft. We started first. The Argentinian Villagra started next. One dune I could not take in one go. I started to move back. There was a ledge and a wheel got into it. The truck fell. I would not say that we laid on the side. We fell onto the roof corner. Of course, then we could not get out ourselves. Shortly Kolomy came, and blinked that he would help. I am very grateful to him because we had to wait for our teammates a bit longer. Martin put us on wheels very fast. That moment we lost 17 minutes. Then I tried to win back. As a result we even could win the stage and at the end of the day increase the gap in the general standings from Federico Villagra”.
Airat Mardeev pilot of crew #507
“In the narrow canyon after a short drive we saw a car lying across the track. Willing or not we had to turn it over. Moreover we saw that petrol was flowing from the tank, and engine and exhaust system, brakes were hot. We tried to turn it over manually because it was impossible to come to the car on the truck. Seven people were lifting it. We lost 29 minutes on that. We hope that the race officials will return us the time spent on help to the car”.
Dmitry Sotnikov, pilot of crew #502
“Early start. We slept only for four hours. The beginning was not easy. Loose and curvy dunes. We tried to drive in a calm way. Then we tried to increase pace. We saw Loeb. There were a lot of stuck vehicles. Quite difficult navigation. Everything went fine, but in one ravine Tom Coronel’s jeep rolled over. There was a big line of vehicles as it was impossible to drive. A lot of trucks were standing. It was second special, approximately 130 km after the start. We lost 15 minutes in that place”.
Anton Shibalov, pilot of crew #515
“We drove for a while after the finish and saw a Sebastien Loeb’s car standing deep in the sand dune. He asked for help. The situation was desperate. We pulled him out.Then we drove further, but unfortunately sat on the top of the dune. We dug a lot. We lost about an hour. I think we moved a huge pile of sand, and moreover there came a slow race 3-axle truck and one of them helped us to drive out”.
DAKAR-2018. TRUCK CATEGORY. GENERAL CLASSIFICATION AFTER 5TH STAGE
1. NIKOLAEV(KAMAZ) 15:59:39
2. VILLAGRA (IVECO)+0:58:05
3. VIAZOVICH (MAZ) +2:28:46
4. MACIK (LIAZ) +3:15:40
5. SUGAWARA (HINO) +3:49:08
6. SOTNIKOV (KAMAZ) +4:01:00
7. MARDEEV (KAMAZ) +4:11:15
8. ARDAVICHUS (IVECO ) +4:38:22
9. VAN GENUGTEN (IVECO) +4:43:26
10. VAN DEN HEUVEL (SCANIA) +5:14:52
11. SOLTYS (TATRA) +5:15:38
12. HUZINK (RENAULT) +5:31:51
13. SHIBALOV (KAMAZ) +6:57:50
14. KOLOMY (TATRA) +8:42:42
15. VASILEVSKI (MAZ) +9:31:09
16. VAN KASTEREN (RENAULT TRUCKS) +18:45:23
17. BEHRINGER (MAN) +20:17:16
18. VISHNEUSKI (MAZ) +30:07:31
19. ROTSAERT (MAN) +62:57:14
20. INGELS (MAN) +64:34:26
21.KADSHAI (DAF) +67:06:35
22. DE GROOT (DAF) +119:31:19
23. ZUURMOND (MAN) +134:55:26
24. COCKBURN (MAN) +187:28:28
