GAZ Raid Sport" ready to conquer the "Hills of Russia": team fields 5 crews

Ulyanovsk, 16 July 2026. This very weekend, from 17 to 21 July, the second stage of the Russian Rally-Raid Championship will kick off across the Ulyanovsk and Samara regions – the legendary "Hills of Russia" Baja. 37 crews from 24 cities across Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan will battle for the main trophies. The GAZ Raid Sport team will field a formidable contingent of five crews: two in raid-sport, one in the T2 standard SUV class, and two trucks competing in the T5 class.

In the run-up to the race, the team has completed all preparatory work. On Friday, 17 July, the bivouac will be set up on Cathedral Square in Ulyanovsk, and an official practice session will take place not far from the city, where drivers and mechanics will carry out final adjustments to their machinery before the start of the competition. On Saturday, 18 July, following the official opening ceremony and the passage through the start arch, the first special stage (SS) will take place.

Team line-up: "Raid-Sport" class and the debut of the "Sobol NN"

In the "R" ("Raid-Sport") class, two crews will drive for GAZ Raid Sport in GAZelle NN vehicles:

Alexey Khlebov / Evgeny Pavlov (start number 216) – Nizhny Novgorod

Maxim Kirpilev / Oleg Tyupenkin (start number 218) – Belgorod and Moscow

The recent triumph at the Gorky Automobile Plant Cup in Nizhny Novgorod demonstrated the high level of readiness of the Khlebov/Pavlov crew.

In the "T2" class (production SUVs), the crew of Alexander Semyonov and Dmitry Okhotnikov (start number 222) will once again present their "Sobol NN" vehicle. For this machine, the race will be a serious test of endurance following its first successful outing in Nizhny Novgorod, where the crew claimed bronze. With each race the vehicle gains more power and will once again challenge the faster prototypes of its rivals.

In the "T5" truck class, the team will be represented by two traditional Nizhny Novgorod crews:

Alexander Filyakin / Alexander Laguta (start number 311)

Alexander Sheludko / Evgeny Sdobin (start number 312)

Given that the total length of the special stages exceeds 800 kilometres, and the overall race distance is 1,165 km, the engineers and mechanics will need to find the perfect balance between suspension stiffness and driver comfort to tackle the hilly terrain, but the team is, as always, in full fighting readiness to compete for podium places.

Geography and rivals

The geographical spread of participants is impressive: the event will bring together drivers from Moscow, St Petersburg, Kazan, Yekaterinburg, Ryazan, Kolomna, Tolyatti, Miass, Zlatoust, Nizhny Novgorod, Ulyanovsk, as well as guests from Kazakhstan (Almaty) and Belarus (Minsk, Borisov).

GAZ Raid Sport will face stiff competition from seasoned rivals. In the T5 truck class, 12 crews will battle for victory, including the legendary "blue armada" of KAMAZ-master (4 vehicles), the Belarusian "red bison" of MAZ-SPORTauto (3 vehicles), and the fast Chelyabinsk drivers of the URAL MOTORSPORT team (3 vehicles). One more truck will take part in the regional "Hills of Russia" series. In the overall classification of the national championship, St Petersburg drivers Boris Gadasin and Andrey Novikov will present their prototypes, this time competing for a team from Kyrgyzstan. Furthermore, the fast Belgorod drivers, the Cherkesov brothers, will also be doing their utmost to stay within the top five. And in the raid-sport category, the GAZ Raid Sport crews will face competition from the highly experienced Anton Melnikov and Anton Nikolaev in a Nissan NP-300, as well as the LADA Sport Rosneft team, represented by two fast crews. In the T2 class, Alexander Semyonov should have a somewhat easier time – only two rivals – but Andrey Sushentsov from S&A Racing and Leonid Petrov from the "Rus" team are serious enough drivers that they cannot be taken lightly.

Race organiser Alexander Okhotnikov has promised an interesting and undulating course that will test the endurance of all participants. And just how well the athletes will cope with it, we shall find out very soon. The race finish and the official awards ceremony will take place on 21 July in the Samara region, in the settlement of Novaya Krymza.

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