Silk Way: De Villiers wins the prologue

Contested on a sandy track in a park in the center of Kazan, this prologue does not count for the general classification, nor does it determine the order of departures for the first stage. But, in front of a large audience, the drivers did not pretend, and Giniel De Villiers, the winner of the 2009 Dakar, made it a point of honor to win, in front of his little comrades Carlos Sainz and Nasser Al Attiyah.

Still a little slower than the other Volkswagen drivers, Mark Miller only managed the seventh time, ahead of Christian Lavieille, excellent with his Nissan N 03 prototype, the Russian Misikov (Nissan Pickup) and the Czech Miroslav Zapletal (Mitsubishi L 200). As for the two-wheel drive buggies, the Basque Bernard Errandonea proved to be the fastest, with his SMG buggy, ahead of Matthias Kahle (Fast and Speed ​​buggy) and Serguey Savenko (Jimco-Honda Acura buggy).

Fifty-one cars will set off tomorrow for the first Kazan-Bouguruslan stage, including a 141 km special stage. Of the 62 registered, nine competitors did not show up for technical checks (including Frenchman Guillaume Gomez, scheduled for a Bowler), while two cars were not admitted, not meeting FIA safety standards. However, one of them? come by road from Vladivostok, i.e. 8 km? was authorized to register in the raid category? His crew didn't come all this way for nothing!