Shibalov won his first stage in the Dakar 2022

Sunday became a starting point for the second half of the Dakar 2022. The rally organizers promise the most difficult challenges ahead, however, it is never easy on such a race.

2141 "combat" kilometers were left behind the racing crews. And not all participants could get to the bivouac in Riyadh. The tricky Dakar does not forgive anyone's mistakes - neither for rookies, for whom the finish line at the legendary rally is the ultimate dream, nor for experienced racers, who entering their next start starting line to fight for prizes.

The rest day, which was on Saturday, allowed the teams to gain strength and prepare sports vehicles for the remaining six stages of the Dakar. KAMAZ-master trucks reached the equator of the race in a good condition and did not require serious repair works. Mechanics carried out a regular technical inspection and maintenance works of the vehicles, with further replacement of consumable parts and separate units that had gone through serious tests on the Arabian off-road.

Not all teams of mechanics of the truck classification were at their best on the rest day. So Martin Soltis (Buggyra) and Albert Llovera (Fesh Fesh Team) were unable to take part in today's stage, and the latter's truck stood in the starting area all day.

Today the rally route headed to the west of Saudi Arabia - from the capital to the small town of Al-Dawadimi, in the central part of the kingdom. The total length of the stage is 701 kilometers (the fifth in the race), and the special stage of 402 kilometers was the longest in the second half of the marathon and the third in the 44th Dakar edition.

A scattering of small and sharp as well as larger stones was fraught with danger in the first 10 kilometers of the special stage, and to puncture tires on fast and narrow paths would be extremely unpleasant. And then the way of the hundreds of crews and bike riders laid in the kingdom of dunes and sand. More than 100 kilometers of difficult-to-pass sections, in which not everyone managed to avoid getting stuck.

The Dutch Janus van Kasteren, a contender for the prize podium in the truck category, became one of the victims of a dune - his truck laid on its side, and Mitchell van den Brink, who started behind him, came to rescue his teammate, who was playing the role of a fast technician Gerard de Rooy’s team. The time losses of the driver who was in the fourth position in the general classification were about 20 minutes. And such situation played into the hands of Andrey Karginov’s crew, attacking the result of the competitor every day. After

The struggle for the result for the winner of the Dakar 2017 in the quad category Sergey Karjakin ended with a much more serious incident. At one of the sections, his crew got into an accident. According to the racer, a lost Italian jumped out from behind the mountain towards the channel - at the moment of a frontal crash, the speed of Karjakin's all-terrain vehicle was more than 100 kmh. In the accident, the navigator of the second car was injured, who was evacuated by a medical helicopter to the hospital. Earlier, at the fifth stage of the marathon, another Russian racer got into an accident – co-driver Alexey Kuzmich and his driver from Saudi Arabia Yasir Saidan made several turn-overs and completed their performance in the Dakar 2022.

Dune sections, that seemed endless, came to an end in the neutralization zone: for the next 60 kilometers, the participants continued to move on the asphalt in compliance with the traffic rules. Taking a breath, the riders broke into a plateau with many roads, narrow sections and rocky surfaces, gaining a high pace again. However, not everyone managed to maintain the maximum speed - thick dust interfered with the crews walking behind, not allowing them to make quick overtakes. And only in the final 100 kilometers of the special stage, the rally caravan returned to the sands and dunes, and drove into a valley with a large amount of wadi (translated from Arabic as dried-up river beds), once again offering the navigators to demonstrate their skills.

Many crews, including Dmitry Sotnikov and Eduard Nikolaev, could not take control points from the first time. Andrey Karginov's crew spent quite much time looking for the right direction. On the last 40 kilometers Maurik van den Heuvel, who was claiming for the top 10, could not cope with the control: at a high speed the truck began to jump on bumps, turned across the track and, having made a turn-over through the roof twice, stood on its wheels. The accident costed the crew about two hours.

At the finish line, the best result of the day was shown by the crew of Anton Shibalov, who coped with the difficult navigation faster than the others. The time of the winner, who started seventh among trucks, was 3 hours 33 minutes 17 seconds. This is the first success of the driver in the Dakar 2022 and the sixth in his career - in 2020 Shibalov won three stages, in 2021 - two.

Anton Shibalov, driver of crew No 501: “Today it turned out a really working special stage. Very difficult in terms of navigation - many short bindings where no one drove smoothly. Judging by the number of lost trucks we met on the way, our crew coped with navigation better than the others."

Eduard Nikolaev lost a minute and a half to his teammate. The third result was shown by Martin van den Brink (+4:25), who finished ahead of Dmitry Sotnikov (+6:52) in the final part of the race. Andrey Karginov, who became fourth on Sunday, drove 13 seconds faster than Sotnikov. Janus van Kasteren finished in only 16^th time, almost 40 minutes behind.

Eduard Nikolaev, driver of crew No 505: “There has never been such a stage on this Dakar. It was very difficult psychologically because of complicated navigation. The crew with the navigator, who could orientate faster, arrived first. We are satisfied with work of our navigator Evgeny Yakovlev, he is great. Many trucks gathered at several points, but we managed to cope with the task. So today to find a point was already a victory."

Martin van den Brink, driver of crew No 506: “We drove well, overtook Loprais and Huzink on the track, and then drove behind KAMAZ. We managed to claw back some time, because there was a lot of difficult navigation, and we found the control point quickly enough. It was good race. Difficult, good place. The truck is very good, the suspension is reliable in the dunes, but driving behind KAMAZ trucks is not so easy."

Ilgiz Akhmetzianov, crew mechanic No 500: “It was a difficult special stage, a lot of navigational difficulties. We could not take one of the points from the first time and had to circle. There were a lot of buggies that made a lot of interference. We lost a lot of time today. We had no technical problems."

Janus van Kasteren, driver of crew No 504: “The first five kilometers were perfect. And then we ran into bumps, lost control and laid down on a side. After the rest day we were in a good mood, we were going to fight, but today we were haunted by bad luck. It's very sad."

In the general classification Eduard Nikolaev cut by half the gap from the leading Dmitry Sotnikov - to a bit more than five minutes. The failure threw van Kasteren from the fourth place to the fifth, and now the sixth Andrey Karginov stands a minute behind. Aleš Loprais moved to the fourth position. Now five IVECO trucks are in the top ten.

Ales Loprais, driver of crew No 508: “In the first part of the special stage we were going well, but then we got into a navigation trap, where we lost several positions. We circled together with KAMAZ, and then one of the Dutch overtook us and then we had to drive in the dust. It was the best we could do, because it was impossible to overtake in the last part of the stage."

On Monday, the Dakar will host the eighth stage along the route Al-Dawadimi - Wadi al-Dawasir. 

Truck category. Ranking of the 7^th Stage. Top 10

Truck category. General Classification after the 7^th Stage. Top 10