Eight years after his last start and a federal manhunt back home in Kazakhstan, Artur Ardavichus is back at the Dakar Rally as the navigator for Denis Berezovskiy. They will race a Can-Am Maverick R in the SSV class for South Racing.

Ardavichus was a Truck regular at Dakar during its South American era, making his debut at the inaugural edition on the continent in 2009. In 2011, he and Berezovskiy joined powerhouse KAMAZ-master in a truck, finishing eighth in class. His KAMAZ stint lasted three years, highlighted by a third overall in 2012 as the highest placing KAMAZ. He eventually spent two years with Tatra, did a year in a MAN for Eurol VeKa MAN, and ran the 2018 Dakar in an IVECO for Team de Rooy.

2018 would ultimately be his most recent Dakar, finishing fourth among trucks in the same vehicle that team owner Gerard de Rooy drove to victory in 2016. He was slated to return in 2019 but the program was called off when the Astana Presidential Sports Club shut down ostensibly for financial reasons.

Behind the scenes, Kazakhstan’s Anti-Corruption Agency launched an embezzlement investigation into Astana and Ardavichus. He and several club figures were accused of conspiracy to embezzle two billion tenge (USD$3,890,924) from the country’s sovereign wealth fund Samruk-Kazyna. Ardavichus denied any wrongdoing, but was placed on a wanted list while his former colleagues were arrested. Eurol VeKa MAN and Team de Rooy’s offices were both raided in 2022 by Dutch authorities to gather more info on Ardavichus.

Unable to return to Kazakhstan, Ardavichus had no other choice but to “drop out of the public space” for the next couple of years. In the meantime, he has been in Europe and the Middle East, getting an FIA license from Lithuania and doing desert training alongside Berezovskiy.

“Without going into details, I want to say that legal proceedings are ongoing,” Ardavichus commented in a video posted in early December. “Fortunately, I now have the opportunity to return to a normal life with the hope of a final resolution of this situation, objectively and fairly.”

Yerkin Tatishev was originally slated as Berezovskiy’s navigator.

Featured image credit: Frédéric Le Floc’h / DPPI / ASO