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This is how you test a brand-new Defender Dakar car
Sand, heat and 5,000 miles of pain for all involved – this is why Defender has signed up for motorsport’s maddest adventure
4 minutes 3 seconds
The Defender D7X-R hasn’t been pampered. It’s been dragged, battered and generally mistreated on a global testing programme designed to find its breaking point – and then push past it. Now it’s time to meet two of the drivers tasked with doing exactly that, all in the name of making sure it’s ready for the Dakar Rally this January.
At just 25, Rokas Baciuška has already ticked off achievements that most off-road racers spend a lifetime chasing. He’s the youngest Lithuanian ever to start the Dakar Rally, the first driver in FIA history to win world titles in two different categories, and one of rally-raid’s most compelling new talents. Fast, fearless, and very much the future. And alongside him sits a man who defines the past, present, and possibly the laws of probability.
Officially he’s Monsieur Stéphane Peterhansel. To everyone else, he’s simply ‘Mr Dakar’. No one in the history of the world’s toughest desert race comes close to his record – 14 Dakar victories, split between two wheels and four. Since the late 1980s he’s conquered the event six times on motorcycles and eight times in cars, with 83 stage wins along the way. In 35 starts he’s finished on the podium more often than not – runner-up three times, third twice. Statistically speaking, he doesn’t just finish the Dakar – he owns it.
Together, this unlikely pairing of rising star and rally-raid royalty have been putting the Defender D7X-R through its paces across the globe, shaking it down in the harshest conditions they can find with their third teammate, American Sara Price. All in preparation for the ultimate test – the 2026 Dakar Rally, which begins on 3 January.
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