Sherpa wins adds victory from stage 10 at Silk Way

19.7.2016

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Incredible! The North Bohemia based MKR Technology was working on improving the cooling system in their Renault Sherpa all night only to see the Dutch pilot win stage ten of the world’s longest and, as all things seem to suggest, toughest rally, the Silk Way, where the air temperature in the hot desert currently reaches fifty degrees. The team continues to hold the overall lead.

“We’ve been coping with the engine temperature and working hard on being as competitive as possible. We’ve made major progress and changes to the cooling system. That we’ve been going in the right direction was proven also by the results of stage ten. The air is forty degrees here and it rises over fifty on the track. Combined with the demanding offroad, it is a lethal combination but I believe we’ll be able to overcome it. Anyway, I don’t want to jinx it,“ comments the chief constructor of the Dakar special Mario Kress from the North Bohemia based MKR Technology.

Compared with the first stage in the dunes, when the teams descended to the lowest point in China and one of the hottest places on the planet, the Turfan depression, there is a clear difference. In the Tuesday stage Martin van den Brink seized a valuable victory again, already a fifth one on this year’s Silk Way Rally. This means that the Mammoet Rally Sport‘s pilot has dominated in 50% of the stages so far. The victory came despite the fact that forty kilometers before the end of the special the right rear tyre started to tear. “The remaining three tyres kept us in the game. We knew we didn‘t have time to lose and stopping to get the tyre replaced would mean a major loss and cost us the overall lead position. We simply didn‘t want that,“ confessed MKR Technology‘s mechanic Daniel Kozlovský the reason of the dramatic finish.

Martin van den Brink was the fastest one to complete the 340km stage from Hami to Dunhuang. The Russian Mardeev lost by about three minute margin and also other three Kamaz trucks finished the stage with minimal difference. His team mate Pascal de Baar arrived to the finish on position nine. “There’s a very strong competition here, including two Dakar winners, and competing with the Kamaz fleet is really valuable for us and essential for further development of the technology. Therefore, we can be extremely happy with the situation. Though we have to have both feet on the ground I believe in a podium ranking,“ wishes Mario Kress.

Van den Brink continues to hold the lead. However, Kamaz pilots keep hinting him down, with Mardeev losing only four and half minutes on second place and Sotnikov a little over nine on third place. Pascal de Baar occupies eighth place in the overall ranking.

The crews are about to match skills in the last four stages. Stage eleven from Dunhuang to Jiayunguan comprises six hundred kilometers in total, with two hundred taken up by the special section. The pilots will have to tackle several smaller dunes to ascend to the mountains, where the altitude will reach up to two and half thousand meters.

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