Stop the presses. Pop the champagne, because — yikes — Defender just won the gruelling and deadly Dakar Rally on their first try. What!? Really? Yes, it’s true, Defender took the win at the 2026 Dakar Rally on its first time out. The three-car team finished first, second and fourth in class, and they won every stage of the impossible two-week rally.
At the risk of stating the obvious: this shouldn’t be possible. Such domination in the toughest desert race in the world is pretty much unheard of. We’re talking about the legendary Dakar Rally, an event in which half the entrants in any given year never even cross the finish line; simply making it to the end is considered a massive achievement for rookie teams. And yet, Defender’s three-car squad didn’t just make it to the end, they won their class.
Victory Speaks Louder than Words
What does all this mean for real drivers? In short: a lot. If you were still wondering whether these trendy British SUVs were really as tough as they look — isn’t it just a posh SUV with GORP-core clothing? — well, now you have your answer. The modern Defender is the real deal, ready for anything.
If a trio of minimally modified Defender SUVs can dominate the Dakar Rally, then we promise they can also handle whatever gravel road, ice-encrusted parking space, muddy cottage driveway, or epic overland adventure you’re cooking up.
There’s a backstory here that’s worth explaining. You see, when the new unibody Defender was launched back in 2019, diehard fans of the classic body-on-frame Land Rover Defender understandably had their doubts. Actually, they had more than doubts. Old school fans argued the Defender had gone soft, that it had become a lifestyle accessory, bowed by the demands of the soccer-practice-and-supermarket set, more Rosedale than Round The World. But with this Dakar Rally victory, the modern unibody Defender has silenced the doubters and proved it’s a more-than-worthy successor to the classic Defenders of old.
A Dakar Winner Off the Showroom Floor
There were many great story lines at the Dakar Rally this year. There was a hard-working Canadian team from Calgary who made it to the finish, as well as a shocking two-second margin of victory in the motorcycle class, not to mention Ford’s strong performance in the Ultimate class with an exotic moon-buggy looking thing.
But, the victory of the Defender is unique, because — unlike the Blue Oval’s Ultimate class moon buggies — the Defender won its class with an SUV not unlike the one you could go out to a showroom and purchase. That’s the whole point of the Dakar Stock class: to put everyday vehicles to the ultimate test. Sure, the Dakar-winning Defender D7X-R has a few goodies you won’t find on the factory option list, but it’s nothing you couldn’t go out and bolt on yourself.
As our man in Saudi Arabia wrote: “Derived from the most powerful production Defender ever built, the D7X-R competes in the World Rally-Raid Championship’s Stock category. The rules stipulate body architecture, engine and gearbox must remain fundamentally intact, limiting how far engineers can stray from the production blueprint. This isn’t a moonshot prototype designed to conquer a single event.”
Changes include extended wheel arches, a widened track, subtly reworked body panels to improve approach and departure angles, additional underbody shielding and higher ground clearance. (It’s up to 370 mm, which is nearly 50 mm more than the OCTA, on which the D7X-R is based.)
The Rally Raid machines have some additional safety features too, as you’d imagine: a full roll cage, racing seats, multi-point harnesses, and a plethora of navigational instruments that turn the passenger seat into something like NASA’s Mission Control. Where the stock Defender has space for passengers and cargo, the D7X-R carries the 550 litres of fuel needed to attack 1,000 kilometre marathon stages in the desert.
The Toughest Test
This year’s Dakar Rally took place over two grueling weeks in January, in the desert, dry scrub and rocky riverbeds of Saudi Arabia. It was 8,000 kilometres and 58 hours, 9 minutes and 45 seconds of torture for the winning Defender team. Victory in the Stock class belongs to Defender’s Lithuanian driver Rokas Baciuška and Spanish co-driver Oriol Vidal.
“Dreams come true you know, and it was my dream to win Dakar,” Baciuška said after crossing the finish line. “For the first year for Defender, it’s amazing. Our mechanics did a great job — what they do is unbelievable, working every day until early in the morning to prepare the cars for the next stage.”
Fellow Defender pilots Sara Price and Sean Berriman secured second place, while Stéphane Peterhansel — a 14-time Dakar winner whose nickname is literally “Mr. Dakar” — finished fourth.
RIGHT: PHOTO BY A.S.O. / ANTONIN VINCENT COURTESY OF DEFENDER.
Mark Cameron, managing director of Defender, captured the magnitude of the moment: “To see the three Defenders come over the line together, it’s the culmination of an incredible team effort. To see us win it in our first race has made history.”
This is just the beginning of a three-year World Rally-Raid Championship programme for Defender. The team’s next test arrives in March at the BP Ultimate Rally-Raid Portugal, with an eye towards Dakar 2027. And we’d bet there’ll be plenty more silverware in the Defender trophy cabinet before this campaign is over.
FEATURE PHOTO BY A.S.O. / ANTONIN VINCENT, COURTESY OF DEFENDER.
