Dakar-ready Defender D7X-R officially shows its competition self

With testing and preparation now officially over, JLR has removed the wraps from its entry into next year’s World Rally-Raid Championship, as well as the Dakar Rally, the Defender D7X-R.

Set to be campaigned by the officially titled Defender Rally team, the D7X-R, based on the flagship Defender 110 OCTA, will take part in the so-called Stock class rather than the outright T1+ division frequented by Toyota Gazoo Racing and M-Sport Ford.

Lightly modified

Based on a modified version of the OCTA’s platform, with the body serving as the production model per the Stock class regulations, the D7X-R also retains the road model’s 4.4-litre twin-turbo V8 engine, albeit adapted to run on sustainable fuel.

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Its test programme having accumulated 6 000km in prototype form, the D7X-R will make its competition debut at the Dakar Rally in Saudi Arabia in January, before embarking on the Rally-Raid programme.

Driver line-up has South African flavour

For Dakar, as well as the Rally-Raid series, three D7R-X will take part, led by 14-times winner Stéphane Peterhansel, co-driven by the equally experienced Mika Metge.

Crewing the second entry is the combination of Sara Price and South African Sean Berriman, and the third that of the Lithuanian-Spanish pairing of Rokas Baciuška and Oriol Vidal.

Ready to go

“Defender is the original British adventure brand, synonymous with unstoppable capability and epic adventure, something which we are proud to showcase on the competitive world stage,” said Defender Brand Managing Director, Mark Cameron.

“It carries the same core architecture and silhouette as Defender OCTA but has been developed to take on the ultimate competitive off-road adventure.

“Dakar pushes everything to the limit, and competing in a rally-raid of this scale will authentically showcase Defender’s capability and robustness in the most extreme and harshest conditions on the planet.”

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