How will the new Defender fare against Dakar's fastest cars?

Land Rover's Defender has been a familiar sight in the Dakar Rally for many years, but the British brand has never before lined up with a full factory team. That will change in 2026: the Defender will foray into the world's biggest rally-raid with three factory entries, with 14-time Dakar winner Stephane Peterhansel spearheading the team's line-up.

Notably, the British manufacturer has opted not to compete in the top category, T1+ Ultimate, but will instead make its debut in the Stock class. This means the Defender D7X-R has only been modified in a few areas compared to the production model.

So how does the speed of the D7X-R stack up against that of a T1+ Ultimate car?

“Until we’ve driven in these conditions and really know how we’re going to perform, and how we need to look after the car to complete the full 17 days, we don’t know,” team principal Ian James told Motorsport. “We did have an opportunity to compare the cars during the Baja in Dubai.”

Stéphane Peterhansel, Defender Rally

Based on that experience, James expects the gap between the Stock cars and the T1+ Ultimates to be significantly smaller than in recent years.

“If you look at the development of the Stock category, the difference between the T2s and the T1+ Ultimates is no longer minutes per kilometre. We’re now talking about seconds per kilometre, and that shows the level of performance,” James continued, while making it clear he has no illusions about the Defender beating the outright fastest cars.

“Will we be quicker than the T1+ Ultimates? No, that would be ridiculous. But we’ll be relatively close. And I think we’ll see plenty of changes over the course of the event.”

Reaching the finish comes before a top result

So what exactly is Defender’s objective for its first Dakar campaign? More important than outright speed is reliability, stresses managing director Mark Cameron.

“The main objective is to finish the rally. Then we want to perform well, and if we were to make the podium, that would be an incredible achievement in our very first race. But I’m also realistic in thinking this may be a longer-term project,” said Cameron, who also emphasised plans to compete in Dakar with the Defender again in 2027 and 2028.

Cameron is still cautious about judging the team’s exact competitiveness compared to Toyota, whose Land Cruiser has set the benchmark in the Stock class in recent years.

“We know the competition is strong," he said. "We also have a lot of respect for Toyota, the brand we’re up against. They’ve been doing this for many years. The Baja in Dubai gave us an idea of our relative speed, but during the prologue we’ll see where the other teams and drivers are and get a realistic picture of how we’ve done and where we are on our journey.”

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