Cyprus team at hungrian Baja. Getting the wheels ready for the Dakar 2017

With the Olympics on TV twenty-four seven, a lot of sporting events may go unnoticed. But not for our island, especially given a fact that a team from Cyprus took place in one of the most difficult European rally raid competitions  – Hungarian Baja.



 Organised by the FIA (Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile) and held every summer in the lake Balaton area in Hungary, this three day race is a true challenge for the participants, a groundbreaking test for endurance and stamina and of course of technical capacity of the team. 



This year the rally took place within the span of 12th-14th of August and was applied for by 32 competitors, among them was a crew from Cyprus. Our national team was dubbed “Team Autolife” and consisted of Russian-Cypriot pilot Roman Starikovich, his co-pilot Bert Heskes of Netherlands with technical team originating from one of Limassol’s best car services – “RS Autolife”. The vehicle in use was a legendary Dessert Warrior, constructed by a renown British tuning firm “Rally Raid” on the basis of Range Rover chassis and BMW engine. 



Thorough preparations paid off during the shakedown, while the cockpit duo managed to improve the team chemistry and their coherence and coordination.

However, during the Super Special Stage (the most difficult out of all stages) many racers experienced sever technical problems. Unfortunately, Cyprus team was no exception. Car generator stopped functioning and the disqualification was a distinct possibility. However, due to the titanic effort of the technical crew and a sufficient help from pilot and co-pilot themselves (Bert Heskes was even forced to come outside to help the mechanics by holding a torchlight in order to fasten the pace of works being done) they only received an additional 40 minutes penalty and were given green light to continue racing on the following day.

With tough lesson learned the team became much more composed and focused, made zero mistakes, significantly bettered their stage time and kept a steady pace up until the end of the competition, thus marking an overall success on the third and second days, taking into account that many competitors simply did not make it to the finish as a result of mechanical failures.

On the 14th of August “Team Autolife” passed the finish line, being graded 4th in the T 1.2 Category and 17th overall. Roman and Bert were met with standing ovation from the crowd and happily posed with Cyprus national flag in front of the cameras, celebrating a decent finish for the island of Aphrodite and putting it on the European motorsport maps. 



For the team itself this seemingly grand rally was only a rehearsal before the biggest event in international automobile sport – The Dakar Rally 2017, the first Dakar in history that will contain a team from Cyprus.  Roman and Bert will continue their training and the car itself is to return to Cyprus in order to achieve more victories both domestically and internationally.



The team would like to kindly thank everyone who supported them, including technical and office staff, platinum sponsors – RoboForex; gold sponsors – Servers.com, Orpheus Group and ReLux Estates; silver sponsors – Sportbooking.com and our media partners – Heart Cyprus. 



You can follow the adventures of the team and their preparatory procedures before the Dakar on the official website (Dakar.team) on Instagram (Autolife_dakar) on Facebook (Autolife Dakar) or utilize Heart Cyprus Facebook and Instagram portals, for they would be providing constant updates and teasers. And of course do not dare missing the Dakar 2017 in Paraguay, Argentina and Bolivia! Let us make history together and be proud of the fist Cyprus team to enter the completion!