- Baciuška and Vidal crowned 2026 Stock champions.
- 233 points each for driver and co-driver.
- Defender Rally wins Stock Manufacturers’ title.
- Stock class win at all four events.
- Peterhansel and Metge win Rallye du Maroc.
Defender Rally crew Rokas Baciuška and Oriol Vidal have been crowned FIA Rally-Raid Stock Drivers’ and Co-Drivers’ Champions in the 2026 FIA World Rally-Raid Championship (W2RC), with 233 points each. Defender Rally also took the Stock Manufacturers’ title with 507 points. The team’s D7X-R competition car is derived from the production Defender OCTA, which links the result directly to the road-going Defender.
The titles were settled at Rallye du Maroc, the final round of the team’s debut season. It comes in the first year of a three-year W2RC programme.
Peterhansel wins Rallye du Maroc
Stéphane Peterhansel and Mika Metge (#500) won the Stock class in Morocco with an overall time of 20:53:52. Yasir Seaidan and Jean-Michel Polato (#505) of Team Land Cruiser Toyota Auto Body finished second, 56 minutes slower, ahead of Baciuška and Vidal (#502). Sara Price and Sean Berriman (#504) were fourth. The stages covered 2 458 km of rocky tracks, fast sand sections and Saharan dunes.
Peterhansel said Morocco was “demanding for the car, demanding for the people, and the drivers”, and a test of the car’s limits in hot conditions.
How Baciuška and Vidal won the championship
The pair won the 2026 Dakar Rally in January, scoring 50 points, then finished second at the bp Ultimate Rally-Raid Portugal and Desafío Ruta 40 in Argentina, and third at Rallye du Maroc. It is Baciuška’s fourth Rally-Raid Championship title, after SSV wins in 2022 and 2023 and the Challenger title in 2024.
Peterhansel and Metge were second in the championship with 220 points each, having won Rounds 2 to 4 after finishing fourth at Dakar. Price ended third on 194 points, with Berriman on 157 after missing the Argentina round in May. Vidal said the crew chose to stay steady rather than push too hard from the first stage of the Dakar.
Defender D7X-R technical details
The D7X-R uses the production OCTA’s 4.4-litre twin-turbo V8 engine and eight-speed transmission. Changes for FIA Stock class regulations include bespoke off-road suspension, increased ground clearance, a wider track, enhanced cooling and underbody protection.
Defender Rally plans for next season
Team Principal Ian James confirmed the team will return next year to fight for the championship and a win at each event, adding that it may try for a clean sweep. The 2026 season was supported by partners Castrol, YETI, Bilstein and Bell & Ross, with suppliers Shackleton and Alpinestars.
Supplied by MotorPress (Nomaswazi Nkosi, PR Specialist, Land Rover South Africa)
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