Silk Way Rally – US Russian dominance on Stage 6

American Damen Jefferies (Buggy) and Russian Eduard Mardeev (Kamaz Master) won the shortened stage 6 (Balkash-Almaty) of the Silk Way Rally. Cyril Despres and Edouard Nikolaev still lead overall.

An American at Almaty

Reduced to 111kms of special stage for competitor’s safety, stage 6 of the 2016 Silk Way Rally between Balkhash and Almaty saw the American duo of Damen Jefferies and Max Eddy Jr in their home made buggy take the honours. “It was a good day, very similar to the open desert races in the US”, said the California native.

Starting 12th this morning after their accident yesterday, Stéphane Peterhansel and Jean-Paul Cottret (Peugeot DKR2008) finished second ahead of team mates Sébastien Loeb and Daniel Elena. Russia’s Vladimir Vasilyev (MINI ALL4 Racing) and Evgeny Firsov (Toyota Pickup) completed the top five. Fifteenth in the special stage at 08’08” to Jeffries, Cyril Despres and David Castera still have an 8-minute lead from Loeb and are 09’50” to the good from Vasilyev.

T2 : At a glance…

Kazakhstan’s Berezovskiy and Falkhov (Toyota Landcruiser) set best time in the production category ahead of The Australian tandem of Di Lallo and Suzuki (Isuzu D-Max) and Poland’s Molgo and Gorecki (Toyota Landcruiser).The Ford Raptor F150 of Terentiev and Berkut still lead in the general classification.

Kamaz triples up

Russian Airat Mardeev (Kamaz) bounced back from his turbo failure, which cost him the stage win yesterday, to set best time today ahead of his Kamaz-Master team mates Anton Shibalov at 0’33” and Dmitry Sotnikov at 2’18”. Siarhei Viasovich (MAZ) from Belarus was fourth, 02’34” adrift of Mardeev, ahead of the fourth best Kamaz on the day, Hou Hongning from China. Eight in the stage, Holland’s Martin Van Den Brink picked up three minutes on the overall leader, Edouard Nikolaev, while Shibalov completes the provisional podium.

Tomorrow: rest day at Almaty

Friday will bring a welcome break from the action for the 2016 Silk Way Rally caravan in the former Kazakhstan capital city, Almaty, before the final push through the Gobi desert and the finish in Beijing.

Silk Way Rally