At the Great Steppe Baja on October 14–18, KAMAZ-master debuted its newest race truck. The KAMAZ-435093 is the first in the team’s 38-year history to feature independent suspension, a particular promotion point.

Independent suspension allows a vehicle’s wheels to operate on a given axle without the other axles and wheels moving in tandem. While common in several rally raid vehicles, it isn’t as prominent on the truck side. Team de Rooy’s DAFs and IVECOs and Loprais Team’s Pragas are among the more prominent examples. Even Ural Motorsport showed up to the Ural Frontier earlier in the RAFRR season with a new suspension layout.

On the other hand, KAMAZ’s Dakar-, Silk Way, and Taklimakan-winning trucks all had solid axle suspension. Despite the successes with it, team president Eduard Nikolaev found the beam-axle system “had reached its limit and could no longer provide the performance we want.”

Development of the 435093 began in fall 2025. The Naberezhnye Chelny-based Rostar Group supplied the suspension, while several upgrades were added like a brand-new transmission and disc brakes.

“To be fair, our fellow competitors have already been using them at the Dakar. For us, this was a new experience,” Dmitry Sotnikov said.

Due to tight scheduling with the Russian Rally-Raid Championship and other issues, there were little chances to test the truck until the Great Steppe Baja in Kalmykia. Even in the days leading up to the race, the team was still scrambling to rebuild and repair various components because they were worried about the transmission and suspension mounting.

Sure enough, the transmission was ultimately what forced Sotnikov to retire from the race after breaking 75 kilometers into Stage 2. Still, he was pleased with the truck’s pace.

“You could see from our times that we weren’t making much progress despite overtaking a lot of other competitors,” he said. “Nevertheless, we’re happy with how things were going.

“It’s still a long learning process, but if we can adapt this suspension to a race truck, taking into account the higher speeds for trucks today and the level of competition, I think it can be a technological breakthrough for us. It’ll give us more opportunities to improve the layout and implement modern technology into this truck like hybrids, electric motors, and other engines.”

Bogdan Karimov dominated Kalmykia in his KAMAZ-435091. His and Sotnikov’s teammate Almaz Akhmedov retired after crashing into a rut and fracturing a vertebra.

Results

T2

Finish	Overall	Number	Driver	Navigator	Team	Vehicle	Total Time
1	10	209	Andrey Sushentsov	Alexander Shchanov	S&A Racing	Toyota Land Cruiser 200	10:58:08
2	11	211	Leonid Petrov	Anton Pletenev	RUS	Toyota Land Cruiser 200	11:12:42
3	12	210	Alexander Semenov	Dmitry Okhotnikov	GAZ Raid Sport	GAZ Sobol 4×4	11:17:19
4	16	214	David Baraev	Mingian Budiev	David Baraev	UAZ Pickup	11:51:59
5	18	212	Leonid Panfilov	Stanislav Kudinov	Lada Sport Rosneft	Lada Niva Sport	11:54:35

T5

Finish	Overall	Number	Driver	Navigator	Mechanic	Team	Vehicle	Total Time
1	1	302	Bogdan Karimov	Dmitry Nikitin	Ilnur Davletshin	KAMAZ-master	KAMAZ-435091	8:11:50
2	2	303	Eduard Nikolaev	Evgeny Yakovlev	Vladislav Glukhov	KAMAZ-master	KAMAZ-435092	8:19:34
3	3	304	Siarhei Viazovich	Pavel Haranin	Andrei Krahelskiy	MAZ-SPORTauto	MAZ-6440RR	8:21:01
4	4	307	Pavel Murylev	Siarhei Sachuk	Maxim Bogonis	MAZ-SPORTauto	MAZ-6440RR	8:45:53
5	5	305	Yuri Naiman	Aleksandr Shmelev	Dmitry Utev	Ural Motorsport	Ural 43206R	8:56:04
6	6	308	Ivan Korolev	Kirilll Vorotnikov	Egor Barnov	Ural Motorsport	Ural 43206R	9:08:40
7	7	309	Dmitry Avdeev	Tahir Islamgulov	Vyacheslav Khachaturov	KAMAZ-master	KAMAZ-43509	9:23:20
8	15	314	Mikhail Shklyaev	Alexander Sheludko		GAZ Raid Sport	GAZ C41R13	11:33:19
9	19	312	Alexander Filyakin	Alexander Laguta		GAZ Raid Sport	GAZ C41R13	13:02:32
DNF	DNF	301	Dmitry Sotnikov	Sergey Krenev	Ilgiz Akhmetzyanov	KAMAZ-master	KAMAZ-435093	DNF
DNF	DNF	306	Almaz Akhmedov	Ivan Malkov	Ilgam Akhmetzyanov	KAMAZ-master	KAMAZ-435091	DNF
DNF	DNF	311	Pavel Naybich	Maxim Novikov	Evgeniy Tiunel	MAZ-SPORTauto	MAZ-6440RR	DNF

R

Finish	Overall	Number	Driver	Navigator	Team	Vehicle	Total Time
1	9	205	Alexey Khlebov	Evgeny Pavlov	GAZ Raid Sport	GAZelle Next	10:35:13
2	13	208	Maxim Kirpilev	Oleg Tyupenkin	GAZ Raid Sport	GAZelle Next	11:18:00
3	14	215	Vladimir Tyupenkin	Ekaterina Kovalev	AMD Motorsport	Lada Niva	11:31:39
4	17	206	Mikhail Mityaev	Egor Okhotnikov	Lada Sport Rosneft	Lada Niva Sport Turbo	11:52:34
5	20	207	Nikita Yurkovsky	Alexey Kabanov	Nikita Yurkovsky	G-Force Lada Niva Proto	28:53:40
6	21	204	Anton Melnikov	Anton Nikolaev	S&A Racing	Nissan NP300	31:13:49

Absolute

Finish	Overall	Number	Driver	Navigator	Team	Vehicle	Total Time
1	8	202	Andrey Novikov	Alexey Goryunov	Kyrgyz Rally Team	G-Force Tigris	9:24:23
DNF	DNF	201	Vladimir Vasiliev	Egeny Zagorodnyuk	VRT	BMW X5	DNF

Featured image credit: Anton Elikov / KAMAZ-master