MINI All4 Racing had four out of their five crews after Stage 13 in the overall top five positions in the Silk Way Rally.
Russia’s Vladimir Vasilyev and Konstantin Zhiltsov continued their consistent pace by being the top MINI All4 Racing team in second place. The Russians were undeterred by the hot and dusty conditions of today’s stage to stay third overall for the rally.
Saudi Arabia’s Yazeed Al Rajhi and Germany’s Timo Gottschalk completed Stage 13 in fourth, maintaining their overall position in second, behind Team Peugeot-Total’s Cyril Despres and David Castera, who currently lead the Silk Way Rally.
It wasn’t a great day for Britain’s Harry Hunt and Germany’s Andreas Schulz as they suffered two punctures on today’s stage. Despite suffering with a terrible start, Hunt and Schulz finished the stage in seventh place.
Aidyn Rakhimbayev and Anton Nikolaev were sixth, but are now fifth overall in the Silk Way. While Bauyrzhan Issabayev and Vladimir Demyanenko finished in sixteenth place for today’s stage, keeping the Kazakh driver in seventh place overall.
Zhiltsov said after Stage 13 “Today was a good stage and we covered a lot of kilometres. When the road began to open up, we saw our chance to go ahead. We didn’t make any mistakes and the car was good. There is no damage to the car and we didn’t get any punctures.”
Al Rajhi added “We didn’t push too hard today; we took it easy to ensure that no mistakes were made today. The Stage was very good – in the end the terrain was rough but in the beginning stages it was very good. The conditions were better today than yesterday. We’re nearly at the end of the race now and we want to keep our position and see if anything can happen in the last moment.”
