BELARUSIANS BECAME THE SIXTH AT DAKAR-2017

Belarusian racers showed the best result in the history of their performances at the Dakar-2017 rally-raid! The crew led by Alexander Vasilevsky finished the marathon in sixth place.

Alexander Vasilevsky broke the previous record of the Mazovian team. In 2015, his crew took 10th place at the Dakar. The current rally raid turned out to be more difficult, but also more successful than previous marathons — the Belarusian racers showed the sixth time, and only 8 minutes were not enough for them to get into the top five.

The last special stage turned out to be quite simple and expectedly did not affect the final result. The best time on the stage among Belarusians was shown by Maz Sergey Vyazovich, who took third place. His time is 35 minutes, and the gap from the winner is only 44 seconds. The first and second places in the rally-race went to Kamaz crews under the control of Eduard Nikolaev and Airat Mardeev.
The crew under the control of Alexander Vasilevsky finished ninth, having spent 37 minutes on the track and 2 and a half minutes behind the leader. Maz Alexei Vishnevsky came to the finish 17th, leaving 39 minutes on the special stage and losing almost 5 minutes more than the winner of the stage.
The champion of the rally raid "Dakar-2017" was the crew under the control of Eduard Nikolaev. Maz Alexander Vasilevsky, taking the sixth place in the list of" marathon runners", lost to him about 2 hours 35 minutes. In second place was Russian Dmitry Sotnikov, and the Dutchman Gerard de Rooy closed the top three at Iveco.
The Mazovian crew under the control of Sergey Vyazovich in the overall standings took the 13th position. He lost 5 hours and 10 minutes to the winner of the rally. About 76 minutes were not enough for him to get into the top ten.
Maz Alexei Vishnevsky finished the rally raid in 21st place. His gap from the champion was 11 hours 49 minutes. The crew had a chance to stay in the top twenty at the 11th stage, when Russian Anton Shibalov and Dutchman Pascal de Baar had difficulties on the track, but the latter still managed to finish, pushing the Mazovian crew from a more winning line.

- The current Dakar was the most difficult and dangerous rally raid in recent years. It had everything — and sharp changes in altitude, and huge dunes, and abnormal heat, and heavy rains, which in places turned the route into a muddy mess. Mazovian crews have never performed so well on the Dakar. Moreover, both racers and equipment showed themselves from the best side. Today Maz is one of the best cars in the world. Only KAMAZ and Iveco compete with us. We can say that we have made our way to the elite of world motorsport — "said Sergey Vyazovich, pilot and head of the MAZ-Sportavto team.
The rally-raid passed through the territories of three countries at once-Argentina, Bolivia and Paraguay. The length of the route was about 9 thousand kilometers. In the truck class, 50 crews took part in the rally, and 42 combat vehicles reached the finish line.