Stage 7: Almaty – Bortala
Road connection: 85.51 km – Special stage: 76.86 km – Road connection: 419.2 – Total: 581.57 km
After a short rest day, the assistance cars left the bivouac in Almaty, Kazakhstan, at midnight (rally time), to start their way to China. For stage 7, competitors took a small but intense special in the mountains and plateau between 2,000 and 2,600 meters of altitude. The racing stage took place in a magnificent special section where competitors had to stay vigilant to avoid falling into any of the traps.
After the stage, the rally caravan crossed the frontier to get to China, to the bivouac located in Bortala, after 419 km of road connection.
ERIC MOZAS/RAFAEL TORNABELL #135 – 51th of the special in 1h21’53 – 26th place in the overall provisional classification in 14h39’45: “This morning, the special stage started at the mountains on a very narrow track. Further in, it was a plateau, but not really flat… it had up and downhill tracks and cuts, so you had to keep your full attention on the road when arriving too fast… and it was hard to break because the terrain was wet. The last 30 km were on the mountain’s skirts… You had to be cautious and we drove well, without taking risks. The SMG 2WD buggy works great, and I would like to thank our technical team, led by Nicolas Garnier, with Cyrille Bouget, Benoit Telmon, Didier Pelegri and Christian Michon. With a team at this level, it is such a pleasure to race. When we crossed the frontier with China, the difference was spectacular. Here, road infrastructure are awesome, it is incredible!”
Tomorrow, the Silk Way Rally continues its road to Urumqui with a new day of 900 km and a timed section of 256.
