Putin admires Kamaz Master pilots’s courage

“Any victory of this sort feels like the first one. Because it is achieved through very hard work and tension, and requires great courage,” Putin said.

The win was especially valuable for the team, because younger pilots had been at the steering wheel, Kamaz Master head, Vladimir Chagin, noted. All three younger pilots, Edik Nikolayev, Airat Mardeev and Andrei Karginov, won prizes at the Dakar.

“We had practised a lot, we had gone to the dunes with them on stony roads, and there came the result,” Chagin said.

He had watched the team and when the Russian team won the prizes, world media had stopped reporting of it, President said, adding he had been surprised about the fact.

In the conclusion, President wished the Kamaz Master team new victories. “I would like to wish you to keep up the heat of competition, to concentrate and achieve new successes and victories,” head of state said.