The Dakar is second to none in the toughest rally in the world. Over the last two decades, Kamaz has only managed to win four times (in 2001 the Czechs won the Tatra 815, in 2007 the Belgian-Dutch MAN TGA team and in 2012 and 2016 Russia had to recognize the superiority of Dutch player Gerard de Rooy at Iveco PowerStar). In the 2021 and 2022 Dakar rallies, a real knockout for world rivals: Kamazy took all the places on the podium. In Dakar 2023, this may not happen again.

Kamaz is censored. Pepper Niva safe

The presentation of the Dakar 2023 route this year turned out to be quite meaningful. The beautiful film documenting the earlier rally lacks a scene with a Russian truck. However, the sensors are not alert enough. Several shots with… Pepper Niva have been saved. It is not difficult to guess that after the Russian aggression against Ukraine began, the question of the participation of the Russian team was asked. Not only the West, but also the Russian media wrote about the possible exception of Kamaz.

Vladimir Chagin (legendary champion in the truck class – won the Dakar 7 times), the head of the Kamaz-master factory team admitted in an interview (published on the team’s official website) about the change of plans in the current situation . When asked what the team would do if they didn’t go to Dakar in 2023, he bitterly stated that sport has now become part of politics. After the withdrawal of foreign sponsors (the list of partners was long last year – including BorgWarner, Goodyear, Total Energies, Red Bull, Webasto, Varta) not only the Kamaz master team had to fight for survival. The truck manufacturers themselves are also trying to stay afloat.

Mercedes tells Russia – “will give sweden”

Not easy for Russia. They lost their most important partner, namely Mercedes (the company announced the disposal of all its shares in Kamaz and the completion of all investments, thanks to which they were able to develop the latest generation of trucks from the K5 family (the cabin is from Mercedes) and K4, which made the most money, in January it is assumed the company will produce 15-16 thousand copies. With the current sanctions, the yield will be 3-5 thousand (some are already missing, so plans to build less than 350 K4 and 77 K5 units in the second quarter are not optimistic) Maintain truck exports and achieve any profit will also work (Sergei Kogogin, Kamaz boss, mentions zero profit).

Availability of components has been so poor that it is difficult to count on a truck that meets Euro-V standards. Hence the decision to offer a truck that still remembers the days of the Soviet Union. Since April 2022, Kamaz has been offering Russian customers an obsolete K3 model with a Euro-2 engine, usually aimed at customers in Africa and Latin America. It is very important that even in Russia, almost no one wants such old equipment (by 2021, a total of 44,000 trucks were produced, of which only 1.5 thousand such old models).

Russia is seeking help from China. But can China help?

It is not surprising that Russia is seeking help from e.g. In China. But China also has its limitations. The new Compass Kamaz small truck is a relative of the Chinese N-series JAC with American Cummins diesel manufactured in China. And it will become increasingly difficult to find them, so the industrial attention of Rostec is already looking for other engines for the Russian automaker. Other components may come from China (or Iran), without which it will be difficult to produce the latest K5 trucks (Kamaz states that from January 2023 production of small series cars with so-called alternative components will begin). This is not the end.

The rally team also did not stay silent. Kamaz-masters teamed up with Gazprom on trucks with hybrid and hydrogen drive. However, after losing a lot of sponsors, you also need to find savings and … sell the property. Vladimir Chagin admits that “life forces us to do it”. Therefore, more rally trucks will be available for sale. This seems nothing new, as historical models have been offered for many years. Apparently, however, more had to be sold than planned now. This is very painful not only for a sports champion.