Never headed during the event, JLR has scored its first victory in the Dakar Rally’s newly created Stock class with a 1-2 finish for the works supported Defender D7X-R.
1-2-4
Having led from start to finish, the Lithuanian-Spanish pairing of Rokas Baciuška and Oriol Vidal crossed the line in 51st place overall, nine hours 12 minutes between event winners Nasser Al-Attiyah and Fabian Larquin.
ALSO READ: Dakar-ready Defender D7X-R officially shows its competition self
Finishing 65th but second in class, were the American pairing of Sara Price and South African-born co-driver Sean Berriman, 23 places ahead of the third placed Toyota Land Cruiser of France’s Ronald Basso and Julien Menard.
Despite a number of problems, 14-times Dakar winner Stéphane Peterhansel, co-driven by Mika Metge, completed Defender’s full house finish by placing 121st and fourth in class.
Sweet success
Overall, 10 of the 13 stages had in a 1-2-3 finish, with an eventual 24 000 km being clocked up across all three cars throughout the event.
“Dreams come true you know, and it was my dream to win Dakar. For the first year for Defender, it’s amazing,” Baciuška said.
“Our mechanics did a great job – what they do is unbelievable, working every day until early in the morning to prepare the cars for the next stage. I give my thanks to them, the engineers, the entire team because without them, we would not be here. It’s great to be P1 and P2”.
Second place finisher Price added, “we had a goal at the final stage to get to the finish line as a team together. So, to see the whole Defender team sitting there at the finish line and all the excitement and emotions, it just shows what this is all about and what it means”.
World Rally-Raid assault next
Heavily based on the standard Defender 110 OCTA with only limited modifications allowed, and running the standard BMW-sourced 4.4-litre twin-turbo V8 engine, the Defender team now switches its attention to the World Rally-Raid Championship that kicks-off in Portugal in March.
NOW READ: Dakar-prepped Defender D7X-R continues testing in Morocco
