Peking to Paris Motor Challenge 2025 Reaches Kazakhstan

*Day 14 of 37 – crews prepare to leave China and cross into Kazakhstan

*Perez Companc crew from Argentina regain the overall lead

*Cars and crews take a battering in Gobi Desert but spirits are still high

The 2025 Peking to Paris Motor Challenge turned up its endurance dials as teams from 15 different countries around the world grappled with difficult conditions in the Gobi Desert, from high winds and low temperatures to deceptive desert tracks that demanded the driver’s and navigator’s full attention at all times.

The gulleys, rocks and endless sand of the huge and empty desert were not only the team’s route to Paris where they are expected on June 22nd, but also where the competition is being played out in the form of Sporting Time Controls, Regularities and Tests. Human and machine have to survive the course then stay on top form for the competition sections. It is about survival and pace, playing the long game.

So far, the Argentine team of Jorge and Christobal Perez Companc have proved to be the wily desert foxes in their 1939 Chevrolet Master Coupe. The father and son team lost the lead but regained it from Britons Brian Scowcroft and Mark Gilmour in their Chevrolet Fangio Roadster when they missed a difficult turn in the desert on a competition section. There is now 40 seconds between the rival crews.

In the Classic Class, the French navigator Corinne Vigreux is performing extremely well, despite the difficulties of the terrain, guiding her Dutch driver Harold Goddijn on the right path in their Porsche 911, leading the Volvo 144 of Australians John Henderson and Lui MacLennan by 52 seconds. Germans Gerd Bühler and Laurenz Feierabend in their Porsche 911 have climbed the leaderboard again to take third in the Classic Class at the expense of Brits Brian Palmer and David Bell in the striking Peugeot 504 Coupe, they are down to fourth classic from second.

Despite the ardours, crews have been travelling through some startling parts of China which they are privileged to witness, as much remains unseen to outsiders. They have traversed the Great Sea Road; an important part of the Silk Road first used in the Han Dynasty that took them into the GSR National Park. The next day they drove across the Park and out across dry parched desert with rocks that morphed into great canyons as the P2P pushed on, described by some crews as looking like they were on Mars!

Conditions deteriorated with winds of over 50 mph battering cars and crews badly, the open top vintage crews in particular were subject to a severe beating by the sand blasting. They were ultimately heading to Ürümqi, the most remote city in the world, but it at least would provide refuge. Some would arrive in the early hours of the morning, others with their broken cars on flatbed trucks.

After all the pain, crews were rewarded the next day with a great route to the foot of the Tianshan Mountains in the Xinjiang Province where they would enjoy a camp with views of the Himalayas in the background. For once they would see greenery rather that the grey and white of the desert! Their reward was a great camp with an incredible backdrop and a certain calm after all the action. 

Pain is probably the best description of Day 11 out of the National Park and through the difficult canyons. Eventually the route would lead them to temporary freedom from the desert and the green mountains of Tianshan, but not before some harsh vehicular and human attrition.

With 50 mph winds battering cars and crews, the vintage teams deserved medals because they were beaten up the most in their efforts to head for Ürümqi.

It was to be a day of attrition and survival across the desert. Car 1, the 1917 LaFrance of Alan and Leigh Maden (AU) was already on a flatbed truck. Car 9 was also on a flatbed, the 1931 Ford A Coupe of Carlos Reider and Stefan Roth (CH), whilst car 77 of Mike and James Cattermole (AU) had a problem with fuel starvation in their Datsun 260Z.

Car 50, the Volvo PV 544, had a broken wishbone with the wheel bent at a crazy angle. The crew of Nicholas and Max Merlino (CH) had already been in trouble with shredded tyres and a broken rim, but they were to plummet down the order in their 1964 Volvo.

Solo driver Tomas de Vargas Machuca reported a clutch problem in the 1925 Bentley, then more ignition and Magneto problems. He persevered until the car stopped and was forced to call for flatbed transport which would take five hours to reach him…. Meanwhile, Jonathan Turner, in another Bentley had also stopped, the fellow Bentley boy together with navigator Nick English, also called for a flatbed to take their Bentley on through the night.

Later on, flatbed Bentley met flatbed Bentley at the only service station for hundreds of miles in China in the middle of the night. Before that, JT as he is known, had been enjoying the hospitality of the Chinese police, enjoying himself and relaxing in the luxury of their big police van which even had an office and a bed where he was able have a rest! One of the friendly policemen let Jonathan put his hat on, but then they had to leave on an emergency call leaving JT on his own to explore. He then found the special seats at the back with huge restrainers on for detainees, which prompted he and Nick to leave in a hurry!

Tomas, Jonathan, and Nick ended up travelling together from the service station arriving at the hotel in Ürümqi in the wee small hours. After two hours sleep, they faced a mountain of work in the morning trying to get their cars going again.

There was more trouble on the day of attrition, day 11. Car 32 had front suspension issues, Peter Pollett and Alexander De Groot (BE) in the 1951 Bentley B Racer Special, car 55 the Peugeot 504 V6 Coupe of Le Mans winner Christophe Bouchut (FR) and Alfonso de Orleans-Bourbon (ES) had broken down at the exit of the National Park. Car 19, the Chevrolet Master Coupe car of Brian and John Caudwell (GB) was seen limping across the desert with gearbox problems. Car 22 of Marc Schätzle and Sandro Tanner, both from Switzerland, had split the radiator in their 1939 Ford model A.

The day of attrition wasn’t just mechanical, it was human too as errors crept in. Car 31 of Belgians Mark Vervisch and Bernard Vanderplaetsen, the 1948 Bentley Bobtail, were beached on a rocky desert mound. As they were trying to dig it out, media cameraman Gary Williams took pity on them and joined in the digging, but not until he had finished filming the incident!

Austrians Christina and Alex Gruber had dropped their 1947 Bentley Justine Special off into a gulley and were perched at a precarious angle, Christina admitting they had lost concentration for a fraction of a second, but they were fortunate to be dragged out without the big car going over on its side.

However, not everyone succumbed to the day 11 gremlins, the best performance of the day went to car 65 the 1972 Ford Escort RS1600 of Steve Osborne and Robert Smith who only received 13 seconds of penalties in the whole tough day.

An interesting entry in the new 4x4 Classic Class are Paul Maddicott and Lee Potter (GB) in their 1984 Toyota Hilux which has already recorded 520,000 miles! It received no special preparation coming to the P2P and has required no attention so far in the rally, in fact as an almost standard vehicle it is going like clockwork. Paul wants to keep going all the way to Paris, and he's hoping eventually to put a million miles on the Toyota Hilux truck!

By the end of day 13 the crews had completed 5,392 kms, just over a third of the distance to Paris. They have been enjoying an adventure of a lifetime from the deserts of the Gobi to the mountains in Xinjiang Province in a wonderful camp, overlooking the mountains.

There was an incredible switch back of a steep climb regularity on Thursday 29th May, day 13 of the P2P, which Peter Berveling and Pieck van Hoven’s (NL) 1947 Bentley refused! It simply couldn’t make the steep climb.

But that didn’t matter so much as all around the topography had changed to resembling the best of Alpine Austria, where the rally will pass much later on in June!

The P2P then headed to this side of the border at Khorgas to prepare for the crossing into Kazakhstan on Friday, day 14.

According to Thomas de Vargas Machuca, it had been an absolutely brilliant drive with wonderful views. With Kazakhstan in sight and the border to cross, he reported that spirits were high. There are still a few cars on trailers, but there will be time, when they get to Almaty (Friday) during the next full rest day, (Saturday) for the preparation for the second big assault of P2P 2025, the challenge of the desert and the tough roads of Kazakhstan.