The winner of the Dakar-2018 was Eduard Nikolaev

21 January 2018

Айрат Мардеев занял третье место, Дмитрий Сотников — десятое

Rally-marathon "Dakar-2018" is finally over, the winners are announced. During the tense race, the best was the crew of "KAMAZ-master", headed by Eduard Nikolaev. The second was Sergei Vyazovich from the team "MAZ-sportavto". Bronze was taken by another Russian pilot Ayrat Mardeev (also represents "KAMAZ-master"). Dmitry Sotnikov's crew was the tenth.

This year the Dakar has been very stressful. Just two days before the final, the gap between Eduard Nikolayev and Argentinian Federico Villagra from the team IVECO in the General classification after 12 stages of the race was only one second! But the fate of Federico decided the case: in the penultimate stage of the San Juan – córdoba he dropped out of the race due to a malfunction of the transmission.

The current "Dakar" was jubilee, the fortieth in a row. The organizers tried to make it as spectacular. For the tenth time the marathon was held on the territory of South America. Riders had to face the dunes of the Peruvian, Bolivian highlands and Argentine road. Total track length was 8 000 kilometers. To start out, the participants from 54 countries, including 42 sports truck.

"I am very grateful to his crew and entire team for the overall victory. A big thank you to the fans for the support that we felt from the start of the race. It was very difficult. In some dramatic moments, we thought all is over for our crew. But, fortunately, the technique suffered and people. For me personally a great happiness to win in the year of the 40th anniversary of Dakar in the year of the thirtieth anniversary of the team KAMAZ-master," — said Edward Nikolaev, pilot of crew No. 500.

After the triumphant completion of the marathon was supported by the leader of the team "KAMAZ-master" Vladimir Chagin: "I am happy that for two weeks the hardest race ended successfully. All this time we felt a huge responsibility to the Russian fans, team partners. The organizers worked very hard this year. 40th anniversary route will long be remembered for its extreme difficulty. Moreover, we are glad to prove the superiority of Russian technology and our motor racing school in the bitter struggle, which lasted almost until the last day of the race. Especially nice that it happened in the thirtieth year our team".