Defender to join Dakar Rally from 2026

The Defender brand has announced plans to enter the Dakar Rally in 2026 as part of a three-year programme.

The British manufacturer, a subsidiary of Land Rover, will field two examples of the popular Defender in all rounds of the World-Rally Raid Championship next year, with an additional third vehicle added to its line-up for Dakar.

Defender will compete in the Stock category that is reserved for production cars, although the sporting and technical regulations will be updated in 2026 to make the class more competitive and allow manufacturers to show what they are capable of in a rally-raid.

Explaining the decision to enter Dakar in the Stock division, as opposed to the Ultimate class that features prototypes from the likes of Toyota, Dacia and Ford, JLR Motorsport’s managing director James Barclay told reporters including Motorsport.com: “For us to come with Ultimate is not authentic, the Defender is the original off-road vehicle.

“It was the first four-wheel drive off-roader in history, so for us to come into motorsport, it’s not like we have to.

“It’s only if we can do it the right way, and the right way is to demonstrate the capability of our incredible Defender as a production car, if we come with a space frame car that looks like a Defender, it’s not authentic in our opinion.

“We wanted the challenge to be about bringing our real car to show what it is capable of, and to support this vision.

“ASO and the FIA had to look at the regulations and say, ‘OK, we need to improve it’. The regulations were based on a very old concept of a production vehicle, and what we’ve done is work with the FIA and ASO to bring the regulations in line with the reality of what a modern production SUV is.

“The Defender is an aluminium architecture, what we call the D7X platform for Defender, an aluminium monocoque construction, three times stiffer than a normal traditional way of making an SUV.

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“And the powertrains are also very interesting, and we’ll share more information on that later. When you look at off-road sport, we think there is a big opportunity, if you compare GT3 and GT4 in circuit racing, in 2000 when the category was created, there was very little GT racing, and if you look at it now, GT racing is prolific with GT3 and GT4, whereas in off-road racing, there is a big opportunity.”

Defender has yet to announce the drivers for its three-car attack for the Dakar, but said it is looking for experienced runners to lead the programme. A female driver could also be recruited as part of its line-up.

Defender is already the official vehicle partner for Dakar this year and has supplied 20 SUVs to ferry race officials and VIPs. A further six modified Recee vehicles will join the fleet to help organise ASO plan the route for the 2026, ’27 and ’28 editions of the Dakar.

Defender said it has already begun a comprehensive development programme with its new rally-raid contender and that it will run the vehicle in a competitive environment for the first time in Autumn 2025.

This will precede the car’s maiden outing in the 48th edition of Dakar in January 2026.