G-Force Motorsport

Ruslan Furundzhi - about race and new Isuzu D-Max

Monday, 25 May 2009 23:17

Руслан ФурунджиRuslan Furundzhi/Maxim Ivanov - the crew which made first appearance of the new Isuzu D-Max car (Class T2) in Russian rally-raids. It happened on Baja Karelia which was held last weekend. .


How did the race evolve for you?

Ruslan Furundzhi: Unfortunately, we didn't make it to the finish - lost a driveshaft in the forest. It's a pity, of course, but it didn't prevent us of completing our task. In principle, the main objective was to discover the car's potential for future races, and from this point of view we managed to do so. And though we didn't reach the finish, we picked up enough information and got first impressions.


Why didn't finish? What happened?

msg_4987_0Ruslan Furundzhi: There was a place where many crews went off, and so did we. Some of them weren't lucky like Alexander Oleinikov who damaged the rear suspension in that place, and others were, for example Alexander Mironenko who  kept on driving without any bad consequences. Huge stones, trees of hands-length girth...  For some reason we didn't manage to turn, probably it was too slippery, and possibly it was just a magnetic place as we weren''t the first ones to be pulled in it. The car just went straight, and it was too late for any corrections.  Crash-Boom! And it's over. Seems like we damaged the driveshaft while jumping into the forest. I tried to move away the rock over which we had just driven - but it was useless. Eventually the car got away of this trap and we managed to reach the service.


The car. Please tell us more about it...

Ruslan Furundzhi: Isuzu D-Max is a wonderful car, which completely turned our view on the Production class (T2) upside down. Gentle, solid, powerful, easy in handling,  agile. It forgives many mistakes, turns  precisely where you steer it - I liked the car really much. Where on our old car we would have  definitely  rolled,  on Isuzu we drove and didn't even notice how. Initially we had doubts about torsions in  front and leaf springs in the rear, but the suspension proved to provide a great level of grip.  By the way, we took off the road many times! Isuzu perfectly jumps and lands on all four wheels. And it doesn't bounce after landing, but kinda  adheres to the road. A very spectacular drive! Now we're negotiating with Boris Gadasin. We think about buying such a car. I want to continue...

Фото: Мирия Горшкова