A Kamaz Master team led by Airat Mardeyev will be unable to continue its participation in the Dakar Rally due to engine troubles, the company’s press service said.

Axar.az reports citing TASS.

As Dakar Rally participants are not allowed to install new engines during the competition, the team’s management decided "not to take the risk and withdraw the Mardeyev’s crew from the remaining stages."

After five stages, Mardeyev’s team was ranked seventh in the overall standings, 3 hours 19 minutes and 3 seconds behind the leader, Eduard Nikolayev (also from the Kamaz Master team). Another Russian crew, led by Dmitry Sotnikov, is the runner-up.

On January 12 it became known that another Kamaz-Master crew, led by Andrei Karginov, had been excluded from the racing protocol after hitting a spectator at the rally’s fifth stage and failing to provide assistance to the injured person. The Karginov crew was third in the overall truck standings, winning the third and the fourth stages.

The sixth stage will be held on January 13. The rally will finish on January 17.