Dakar: Stéphane Peterhansel returns with the Defender

      Among the heroes of the Dakar rally raid there is an outright record-holder — the Frenchman Stéphane Peterhansel, who has won this supermarathon 14 times and first took part in it back in 1988. At that time he was a motorcyclist and, together with the factory Yamaha team, won Dakar six times; in 1999 he switched to off-road vehicles, joining Mitsubishi.

      After that he won the legendary rally raid another six times, competing for different teams — after Mitsubishi those were Peugeot and Mini. From 2022 to 2024 Peterhansel was a driver for the factory Audi team and, together with teammates including Carlos Sainz Sr., tackled Dakar in the Audi RS Q e-tron electric car in the T1-E category.

      He managed to win a couple of stages, but overall you can't say those marathons were successful for him — for various reasons; but most importantly, he still showed very good form and had lost neither his courage nor his speed.

      Peterhansel skipped last year's rally raid, but now the 60-year-old driver is returning, this time with the factory Defender Rally team and will pilot one of three brand-new Defender D7X-R off-road vehicles prepared in the Stock category. Vehicles of this class are not that different from production SUVs, but, of course, are equipped with everything necessary to withstand extreme loads.

      Preparation was carried out by the well-known British company Prodrive; these cars are fitted with 4.4-liter twin-turbo V8 engines whose power is limited to 390 hp by the regulations. The D7X-R also has increased ground clearance, a widened track, revised suspension, and improved cooling systems.

      On the one hand, the racing Dacia Sandrider in the T1+ category that Sébastien Loeb drives has an engine that develops "only" 360 hp, but those special cars are still half a tonne lighter.

      "At roughly the same power our car is 500 kg heavier, therefore the Defender has a worse power-to-weight ratio," Peterhansel commented. "But the main difference is in the overall construction of the car: we have a regular production chassis, a standard front-engine layout, and the suspension on it is little different from a normal one.

      And on the T1+ prototypes the center of gravity is lowered, the suspension is completely reworked, designed specifically for this kind of competition, the wheels are of larger size and the brakes more powerful. In short, we will inevitably fall behind not because of the engine or the car's weight, but because our Defender is a conventionally constructed SUV. It is much less robust than a prototype, so we will be forced to drive at a more cautious pace and avoid excessive stresses…"

      This will be Peterhansel's 38th Dakar, and joining him in the Defender crew with race number 500 is Michel Metge, also a former motorcycle racer who has been serving as co-driver since 2022.