It took a lot to get to Abu Dhabi so soon after winning the opening round in Italy. The cars were flown in, the T5 service truck was shipped and the team came from different  places in Europe... so, after a pile of paperwork for customs, visas and scrutineering... where the officials were a little annoyed that the cars were too dirty
to read the serial numbers (no time even to clean them properly) we got to the Prologue and the drivers finally got to do what the came
here for; Racing!

The track was only a couple of kilometres long but it was enough to put on a good show for the spectators. A couple of corners to kick up the dust, a high, but soft ramp and a little water-filled trench made up the course, and the cars were flagged off in reverse order so that the track got more and more cut up as each car passed... which almost caught out Boris. After elicting cheers from the crowd from the height of the jump the front wheel dug into a rut, caught a stone and almost tipped the car... Maybe it looked a little more spectacular from outside though as Boris wasn't concerned at all and just laughed that he was entertaining the onlookers.

Demonstrating to everyone his prowess behind the wheel Stephane Peterhansel won the stage in the striking new Mini, an impressive five seconds ahead of team mate Leonid Novitsky, but the loudest cheers were reserved for our very own Roman Briskindov in our reanted G-Force Proto. With a perfect display of car control, power-sliding around the corners he got an amazing 4th place, beating his teacher Gadasin on his very first attempt. Boris himself was a little under two seconds behind, but the positions have worked out well, as it means that Roman can drive behind Boris through the stage tomorrow. So the real competition starts tomorrow. G-Force is up against Dakar legend Peterhansel, current Cross Country World Cup champion Novitsky and JL Schlesser in his buggy. We are the championship leaders, but in the sand we admit, we are the underdogs... but let's see what tomorrow will bring as nothing is for sure in the desert...

Text and photos by Robb Pritchard