Press release
11 July 2016
Silk Way Rally 2016 – Al Rajhi places MINI ALL4 Racing in
second place overall after Day 3. Four of the five MINI ALL4 Racing
family inside leading top ten.
Atrocious weather conditions (10-07-2016) forced cancellation of Silk
Way Rally Leg 2 Kazan to Ufa. Leg 3 ends with two MINI ALL4 Racing in
top five.
Munich. Today’s Leg 3 of the Silk Way Rally signalled
the start of demanding long distance cross-country rally driving.
After the short but spectacular Special Stage of Leg 1, the five MINI
ALL4 Racing crews were keen to show what they and their MINI ALL4
Racing were capable of from the start of Leg 2 (10-07-2016).
Unfortunately, the previous days of rain had caused many of the route
tracks to flood. With the threat of yet more violent storms forcing
the support helicopters to remain grounded, the Silk Way Rally
organising team reluctantly had to cancel Leg 2 and the competitors
drove orderly to Ufa for today’s start of Leg 3.
Leg 3 saw some fast driving across mostly gravel tracks and resulted
in the MINI ALL4 racing #103 of Yazeed Al Rajhi (KSA) and Timo
Gottschalk (GER) completing the section in second position.
Al Rajhi: “For me everything was ok. After 20k we caught another car
and unfortunately we had to follow in his dust for quite a long
distance. It was a nice stage and we had a chance to make better time,
but second is a good place to start tomorrow. I have a very good
co-driver and he made the stage very easy for us.”
Also pushing hard, but in a safe and secure manner, the MINI ALL4
Racing duo of Vladimir Vasilyev (RUS) and Konstantin Zhiltsov (RUS)
netted a solid fourth place after 815.15km of driving – 271.63km of
which consisted of a Special Stage.
The MINI ALL4 Racing #106 of Aidyn Rakhimbayev (KAZ) and Anton
Nikolaev (RUS) completed Leg 3 in sixth place and are now sixth
overall. Talking about Leg 3, Rakhimbayev said: “It was very twisty
and narrow. One time we jumped and hit something with the front of the
car. We stopped to check everything, but the car was fine and we went
on. Of course, we lost some minutes but that’s okay. I am still
gaining experience!”
Harry Hunt (GB) and Andreas Schulz (GER) in the MINI ALL4 Racing #105
didn’t fare so well today, completing Leg 3 in ninth position. “It was
quite a hard stage for us,” said Hunt. “I didn’t find it very easy at
all. There were a lot of tracks through the grass so it was quite hard
to see ahead and then we hit a water splash. Then we got lost a little
bit. And then again. But we are here and looking forward to tomorrow.”
Bauyrzhan Issabayev (KAZ) and Vladimir Demyanenko (RUS) in the MINI
ALL4 Racing #109 passed Leg 3’s finish point in 11th. In the overall
standings, Issabayev has moved up one place from 12th after Leg 1 to
11th – hopefully a top ten placing is on the cards after tomorrow’s
Leg 4: Kostanay to Astana.
The Silk Way Rally has now moved further east from Russia to
Kazakhstan. This shift in route will also bring with it a change in
“rally time”. Until today “rally time” was GTM +3. In the evening the
time will change to GTM +6 making the overnight stopover and sleep
time, for all concerned, very short.
For further information about the Silk Way Rally 2016, please visit:
www.silkwayrally.com
Silk Way Rally 2016: MINI ALL4 Racing
Race calendar: 2016 FIA World Cup for Cross Country Rallies.
19/02 – 22/02 Baja Russia
02/04 – 7/04 Abu Dhabi Desert
Challenge
17/04 – 22/04 Sealine Cross-Country Rally Qatar
23/06 – 26/06 Italian Baja
22/07 – 24/07 Baja Aragón
11/08
– 14/08 HunGarian Baja
25/08 – 28/08 Baja Poland
03/10 – 08/10 Rallye Oilibya du Maroc
21/10 – 23/10 Baja
Portalegre 500
Find reports, photos and videos in high resolution of previous MINI
ALL4 Racing activity on the BMW Media Website by clicking here.