Baciuška stretches Dakar lead for Defender as Peterhansel hits trouble

Another day on the 2026 Dakar Rally, another win for Defender. Sounds straightforward enough, as the brand maintained its perfect winning record in the Stock category. But the off-road enduro doesn’t do easy rides. When Rokas Baciuška was busy celebrating a Stage 8 victory in Saudi Arabia to extend his overall class lead (with Sara Price climbing to second), team-mate Stéphane Peterhansel was still making his way back to the base camp following an agonising setback. 

Week two of the Dakar kicked into overdrive on Monday with the longest competitive section on this year’s entire event. A 483-kilometre timed loop through the heart of Wadi ad-Dawasir (the valley region returning to the rally-raid for the first time since 2022) opened with a stretch of high-speed sandy tracks peppered with chains of dunes. It was then into an alternating sequence of canyon passes, rough rocky paths and faster plateaux that teed up the sprint to the finish line on this particularly varied and picturesque course.

In the latest case of a lightning start for Price, the Defender driver was quickest in the production car-based Stock class through the first two checkpoints up to 86 kilometres. That was before Stage 1 and 5 winner Baciuška stretched the legs of the Defender Dakar D7X-R, which uses a showroom-spec gearbox, drivelines, bodywork and chassis. Exercising the 4.4-litre twin-turbo V8 borrowed from the Defender OCTA lifted him into a 30-second lead over the next 50 kilometres, as Price dropped to third behind Peterhansel. 

Such was the Lithuanian’s rapid progress that he and co-driver Oriol Vidal began to catch up to Peterhansel on the stage itself – an earlier position in the starting order meant the 14-time event winner had set off a minute before Baciuška. Their advantage to ‘Mr Dakar’ stood at 40 seconds after 223 kilometres as Price recovered to sit 1 minute 25 seconds back. 

Then Peterhansel and his navigator Michaël Metge hit trouble. With 200 kilometres to run, a snapped alternator belt forced them to pullover. That’s not the sort of repair that can be carried out quickly, so a lengthy delay ensued until one of the support trucks arrived before towing them back to camp. 

While this was playing out, Baciuška saw an opportunity. The 26-year-old completed the route in a little over five hours to bank his third stage triumph – matching the tallies of Price and Peterhansel. Perhaps most significantly, it extends his overall advantage in the Stock class to a colossal 2 hours 37 minutes and 51 seconds. Although, as the day proved, such a margin can’t be taken for granted. 

“There was quite a lot of everything today: many rocks, also soft dunes,” said Baciuška. “Actually, it was good even though it was very windy because it didn’t disturb the dunes… Oriol did a really good job. We didn’t spend a lot of time searching for the waypoints so we are happy, but tomorrow’s Marathon Stage will be the key point of Dakar.”

Price stopped the clock just 1 minutes 44 seconds behind Baciuška to snare second. That’s paved the way for a massive swing in the combined times. Peterhansel’s troubles added to the Toyota Land Cruiser of Ronald Basso being more than an hour slower on Stage 8 means the American and her co-driver Sean Berriman shoot from fourth up to P2 in the class.

Price added: “Today was a really fun stage. It was fast and our goal was to gain time on Toyota ahead of us. We just learned that we did move up, which was the goal today, but it’s really unfortunate that Stéphane is still out there. But yes, it was a good day for us with not many mistakes and really no issues.”

The team will now work well into the night on Peterhansel’s car. Jack Lambert, the team’s Head of Technical Integration for Defender Rally, is “confident” that the French ace and Metge will be able to join in again tomorrow. In the morning, it’s a second gruelling ‘Marathon Stage’ on the 2026 Dakar.

This popular part of the format in essence pairs the Tuesday and Wednesday schedules for one 48-hour test of stamina. It begins with Stage 9, which will take the car crews on a 410-kilometre timed course out of Wadi ad-Dawasir to the pared-back overnight ‘bivouac’ refuge camp. A precarious rocky start will give way to dune fields. As ever with Marathon rules, the competitors are left to their own devices. If they hit trouble, the team mechanics won’t be on hand to help. There’ll be more updates here, so stay tuned.

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