“I missed the Dakar”

He’s back. After a last Dakar spent driving a press car for the Kamaz team, Ayrat Mardeev returns to a rally that he conquered now six years ago. His last experience on the race inside the cabin of the Kamaz truck is one he’ll want to forget. Indeed for the third time in 10 appearances he failed to reach the finish, forced to stop after six stages. Back in 2015, the son of Ilgizar Mardeev managed to do better than his father, a former Dakar competitor (4th in 2009 and 2011), when he claimed the Dakar in Buenos Aires. A precious team mate to Eduard Nikolaev, helping him triumph in 2017 and 2018, he’ll actually make the best of the absence of his compatriot this year in his quest for further glory. While Nikolaev will be part of the team‘s management alongside Vladimir Chagin, Mardeev is eager to battle it out on Saudi soil with his usual cabin partners: navigator Dmitriy Svistunov and mechanic Akhmet Galiautdinov.

A.M. : “I missed racing the Dakar last year. I was acting as a press-car driver. I watched the race from the outside and certainly after the missed Dakar, we wanted to return to the cabin a lot. Our crew set an aim to increase our pace. And when we heard the news that we were going, we were very happy. We hope that we will show a decent result”