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MAZ-SPORTauto crew first at Silk Way Rally Stage 1

MINSK, 7 July (BelTA) – MAZ-SPORTauto Team won Stage 1 of the Silk Way Rally which passes through Russia, Mongolia and China, BelTA learned from the website of the rally.

MAZ-SPORTauto Team showed the best time among hooded trucks on Stage 1 from Irkutsk to Baikalsk. The truck is piloted by Sergei Vyazovich.

“The stage was cool. It was very slippery in forested sections. The stage was all about smart driving. It was quite dangerous. On our way we saw a lot of buggy and SUV vehicles standing with detached wheels and suspensions. The clay sections, especially on the slopes, were extremely slippery. We tried to keep up high speed. In general, everything went well for us. We enjoyed it,” Sergei Vyazovich noted.

KAMAZ-Master crew piloted by Anton Shibalov was second, 56 second behind Sergei Vyazovich. Another Belarusian crew of Aleksei Vishnevsky was third, two minutes behind the winning time. Aleksandr Vasilevsky’s crew finished ninth with a time lag of nearly 5 minutes.

The second stage will be go from Baikalsk to Ulan-Ude and will be 409km long.

As it was reported earlier,  MAZ-SPORTauto Team set off for the Silk Way Rally across Russia, Mongolia and China in late June. The race started in Russia's Irkutsk on 6 July and will finishin China’s Dunhuang in 10 days. The race will feature timed sections in Eastern Siberia,  Mongolian steppes, Chinese plains and also sand sections with dunes of the Gobi desert. The route exceeds 5,000km, half of which will be special stages.

Belarus has fielded three crews. The race will be a test and evaluation master plan for the Belarusian team ahead of Dakar Rally Raid. The crews will hone their skills, trial the trucks and test many know-hows.

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