Big Shock Racing’s Martin Macik in his truck ‘Charles’ claimed victory in Stage 10, covering the 583km track from Neom to Al Ula with a timing of 03:13:02 hours. Following him was reigning champion Dmitri Sotnikov (Team Kamaz-Master) — who hasn’t missed a podium finish since stage one — with a difference of 01:40 minutes. At P3 was the Kamaz-Master truck of Airat Mardeev with a difference of 03:16 minutes from the leader.
Stage 10 started from Neom, was comprised of a mixture of soil and sand, which challenged a lot of participants which made them miss a lot of waypoints and ended up losing time due to navigation errors.
Martin Macik, for the first time, opened the stage for his rivals. After his maiden victory in Stage 9, Macik took the lead till WP1 (Waypoint 1). Trailing him were the Kamaz-Master trio followed by team Instaforex Loprais Praga’s Ales Loprais with a difference of just one minute between the five.
Somewhere midway, team Kamaz-Master’s Anton Shibalov overtook Macik but at the 200km mark, Macik retained his position and took the second win in a row. However, Macik who is leading the stage victory in stages nine and ten is way behind Sotnikov in overall rankings by a difference of over forty minutes.
Stay tuned for stage eleven update, a 598km traverse shortened by 50km due to bad weather conditions.
You can read more updates about the Dakar here.