Defender Sweeps the First FIA Stock Rally-Raid Titles in Its Debut Season
Rokas Baciuška and Oriol Vidal won the Stock title with one victory and relentless consistency, as the OCTA-based D7X-R won its class at every round Defender entered.
Defender's first year in the FIA World Rally-Raid Championship ended with every title it could win. Rokas Baciuška and co-driver Oriol Vidal clinched the inaugural Stock drivers' and co-drivers' championships at the Rallye du Maroc on October 3, and Defender Rally took the Stock manufacturers' crown with 507 points.
Production-based off-roaders are having a moment in desert racing, from Honda's bone-stock Passport TrailSport at the Rebelle Rally to factory programs like this one. Stock is the world-championship version of that idea, and Defender just swept its first season.
The title came down to consistency rather than wins. Baciuška and Vidal won only one round all year, but it was the big one: the Dakar Rally in January, which paid 50 points. They followed it with second places in Portugal and Argentina and a third in Morocco, finishing on 233 points each, according to Defender.
Teammates Stéphane Peterhansel and Mika Metge were faster over the rest of the season. They won Portugal, Argentina, and Morocco, but a fourth place at Dakar left them 13 points short on 220. Sara Price completed a Defender 1-2-3 in the standings with 194 points; her co-driver, Sean Berriman, scored 157 after sitting out Argentina.
Morocco itself belonged to Peterhansel and Metge, who won the Stock class in 20 hours, 53 minutes, and 52 seconds. Toyota's Yasir Seaidan and Jean-Michel Polato were second, 56 minutes back, ahead of Baciuška and Price. The route covered 2,458 km (1,527 miles) of rocky tracks, fast sand, and Saharan dunes.
Taking Toyota's class
For more than a decade, production-car rally-raid was Toyota territory. Team Land Cruiser Toyota Auto Body won Dakar's production category 11 years in a row through 2024, a streak Toyota celebrated at the time. For 2026, the FIA and Dakar organizer ASO rewrote the Stock rules to allow more performance, and Land Rover said in January 2025 that it helped shape them alongside other manufacturers.
Defender won the class at all four W2RC rounds it entered. The FIA's cross-country category manager, Jérôme Roussel, noted these are the first Stock titles the governing body has awarded for manufacturers, drivers, and navigators.
The car is the Defender Dakar D7X-R. It keeps the production Defender OCTA's 4.4-liter twin-turbo V8, eight-speed automatic, and D7x aluminum monocoque, then adds bespoke suspension, more ground clearance, a wider track, extra cooling, and underbody protection. The road-going OCTA makes 626 hp (635 PS); Defender hasn't published output for the race car.
For Baciuška, it's a fourth rally-raid title across three categories, after SSV titles in 2022 and 2023 and the Challenger crown in 2024. Vidal summed up the approach plainly:
"We didn't go for the push too much, we wanted to stay steady and try our best."
Off-road racing has long been a sales tool for trucks and SUVs; it's why Ford asks a Baja 1000 winner what matters in the F-150 Raptor. The difference here is that Defender is racing a body and drivetrain buyers can actually order.
The championship isn't quite over: the W2RC finale is the Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge on November 22–27, per the official calendar. Defender, however, says Morocco closed its 2026 season. Year two of its three-year program starts with the Dakar Rally on January 1, 2027, and team principal Ian James is already talking about a clean sweep of wins.
