Dakar’s first Marathon Stage sees Peterhansel win again for Defender

The Dakar Rally is just about the toughest fixture in motorsport and the ‘Marathon Stage’ is just about the toughest part of the Dakar Rally. Yet ‘Mr Dakar’ is seemingly taking it in his stride. Stéphane Peterhansel snagged his second successive Stock class stage win on the 2026 off-road enduro in Saudi Arabia, topping the latest Defender 1-2-3 finish to maintain the team’s winning start.

A particularly early alarm woke the crews on Wednesday. That’s because Stage 4 marked the first half of the returning two-day ‘Marathon’ format. As the name suggests, this is where stamina is really pushed to the limit. A 451-kilometre timed route (plus 75-kilometre road section) for the car classes through inland AlUla included a near 50:50 split of sand and gravel paths as the landscape swapped between canyons, fast plateaux and rocky slabs.

Unlike most days, the motorbikes rode off on a different course. That reduced traffic out of the starting gates, allowing the car competitors to start (and finish) earlier. The good news: more time for repairs at the ‘bivouac’ refuge overnight camp. The bad news: far fewer tracks laid down in the surface to ease the job of navigating.

Repeating her rapid start from the previous day, Defender driver Sara Price bolted to an early Stage 4 lead. She wasted no time pulling 15 seconds over Peterhansel in the opening 89 kilometres. But the Prologue and Stage 2 winner fell back shortly after, clearing the way for ‘Mr Dakar’ to pounce for first place. Thirty kilometres later, he headed team-mate Rokas Baciuška by two minutes with Price now in third.

Fresh from scoring his first-ever Stock class stage win on Tuesday, Peterhansel was again in his element. The Dakar doyen carved a mighty eight-minute advantage in front of the Toyota Land Cruiser of Ronald Basso. Peterhansel stretched that to north of 10 minutes come the 200-kilometre mark before a resurgent Price slashed the lead in half as she regained second.

For the next couple of hours, the gap from Peterhansel to Price stabilised at around five minutes while Baciuška moved up to third. But there was no catching 14-time Dakar winner Peterhansel and co-driver Michaël Metge. They finished the route in just under six hours to earn a second consecutive stage triumph, extending Defender’s perfect winning start to 2026. For those keeping count, that’s now Peterhansel’s 52nd Dakar stage victory in cars (for a whopping total of 85 if you add in his bike wins). 

"It's been a long time since I spent more than six hours in a car in a special [stage],” said Peterhansel. “The last few times it was because we had mechanical problems. This time, we were just driving, and that takes a lot of concentration. It was a great special, with magnificent scenery.

He’s also enjoying the challenge of the new Stock class. Having started his Dakar career with six motorbike wins before moving into top flight bespoke-built prototypes, the 2026 edition marks his first entry in the showroom-spec category. Case in point, the Defender Dakar D7X-R is powered by the same 4.4-litre twin-turbo V8 as the Defender OCTA and features a gearbox, drivelines, bodywork and chassis lifted straight from the production line. 

He added: “There was a very strong project at Defender: to take a production-based car all the way to the finish of the event. My challenge was to help them achieve that. And I'm happy to be back, because there's a special atmosphere here.”

With the pace of the top two Defenders so evenly matched over the final 200 kilometres of Stage 4, Price was still five minutes adrift over the line as Baciuška completed a hat-trick of team 1-2-3 finishes. A fourth podium in as many days for him and co-driver Oriol Vidal ensures they maintain the overall Stock lead.

But they can’t put their feet up yet. For the Marathon Stage, the team support crews aren’t allowed to help with any end-of-day fixes. It’s up to the drivers and navigators to tend to repairs with the tools packed onboard. In the case of Baciuška of Vidal, they’ll be busy replacing the right-rear knuckle. Still, they currently sit pretty with a chunky 42min36 gap over Basso. He’ll be looking over his shoulder though, as Peterhansel has recovered 10 minutes to now hover just 79 seconds behind. Price and co-driver Sean Berriman sit fourth. 

Jack Lambert, Head of Technical Integration for Defender Rally, explained: “A really positive stage for us today – our first Marathon stage. There are some issues to go after, which the drivers and navigators will have to work on together with the spare parts we’ve loaded them up with. But the great news is that all three cars are home. A really nice result today with Stéphane clawing back time on the Toyota. A really good step – we’re looking forward to getting them going again tomorrow.”

After an especially hard day’s work, there’s not the relief of a three-course meal before climbing into a comfy king-size bed. As part of the Marathon format, the crews must make do with a sleeping bag, a tent and military rations. Then it’s straight into Stage 5 on Thursday, the second leg of the Marathon. A 372-kilometre timed course will traverse winding tracks, stony passages, large valleys and wadis before finishing in Ha’il – where, finally, the team mechanics can check the cars over. Follow here for updates. 

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