Engineered4Extremes - In Focus

Few teams win a class at the Dakar Rally, the world’s most punishing off-road race, on their first attempt. Defender did exactly that. Backed by Castrol since 2025, Defender Rally’s works team claimed victory in the Stock class of the 2026 Dakar, with Rokas Baciuška and Oriol Vidal guiding the Defender Dakar D7X-R across the desert to the finish. The result rewards a partnership built for punishment rather than polish: motorsport’s harshest conditions expose weaknesses that ordinary road testing never reaches. For a brand whose reputation rests on going anywhere, there is no sharper proof than success in the one event built to break vehicles that make that claim