Silk Way Rally 2016: An Event Overlooked

Motorsport takes us to places that take our breath away. Running at a longer distance than the Dakar Rally, the Silk Way Rally was one such event.

One never realises how truly blessed motorsport participants really are until we look beyond the confines of the familiar series like Formula 1, MotoGP, WRC and WEC. There is a whole wide world out there to be discovered and cross-country rallying – the abode of its specialists and even those who finish their time in the more high profile series – allows us to discover it. Whether by actually being there to witness it in person or living vicariously by following it through the many means now available to motorsport fans.

The Silk Way Rally, which covers 10,000km on its route from Moscow to Beijing was one such event. It’s significance boosted by the participation of the factory Peugeot team that won this year’s Dakar Rally as well as of the X-Raid team, which ran them close in South America.

Dakar legend Stephane Peterhansel, Cyril Despress (formerly a five-time Dakar winner on a motorcycle) and rallying legend Sebastien Loeb were part of Peugeot’s efforts to tame the steppes and then the mighty Gobi desert to win the first Silk Way Rally held since 2013.

Going through vast dunes and oases with colours that scarcely made you think they were real, the rally’s 10,000km had to be covered in just 16 days. Think about that for a minute. Over a thousand kilometres more than the Dakar Rally but with only two more days to cover it.

Despress won the event from X-Raid’s Yazeed Mohammad Al Rajhi with three more X-Raid Minis in pursuit. The next best placed Peugeot came home in seventh place as Loeb was also beaten to the finish by China’s Wei Han.

Beyond the sporting aspect of the event, however, there was apparently a larger geopolitical sub-text to the rally as well. Russia used the event as a means to strengthen its relations with China, just as it had done with the former Soviet republics of Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan when the event was last held three years ago.

Even the event’s title sponsors were Russian oil giant Gazprom and China’s state-owned car company BAIC. There was even a crew in the truck class where the Russian-built Kamaz truck was sponsored by Gazprom and featured two Chinese drivers in it. Russia’s president Vladimir Putin has never been one to shy away from using sport to promote ‘brand Russia’. This has included the hosting of the Sochi winter Olympics and even numerous photo ops – including driving an F1 car – throughout the Russian Grand Prix.

Makes you wonder if Russia’s on to something while India generally gives motorsport a cold shoulder.