Thread: Dakar Defender

Peterhansel had to bow out of yesterday's stage due to a broken alternator belt, not sure if that is actually a serpentine belt, and hard to believe that they don't carry a spare. The Defender is back in today's marathon stage but can only race for stage wins not the overall, which is led by the other Defenders of Baciuska 3 hours ahead of Sarah Price.

Originally Posted by RANDLOVER

Peterhansel had to bow out of yesterday's stage due to a broken alternator belt, not sure if that is actually a serpentine belt, and hard to believe that they don't carry a spare. The Defender is back in today's marathon stage but can only race for stage wins not the overall, which is led by the other Defenders of Baciuska 3 hours ahead of Sarah Price.

The other story is it was an alternator problem that caused the belt problem,which is probably more like the truth.....

The belts on those particular BMW engines are extremely difficult to replace,need special tools,etc,which one would think they would have had anyway.

There is a great Vid floating around of a Defender at full speed on a long sandy section of track.Then a LC300 doing the same section.

The Deefer rides so much better,there is actually no comparison.
I am guessing,probably due to the Prodrive rally/racing suspension set up.

The rules were actually changed for 2026,so vehicles like the Defender could compete in the class.

Please be aware thst the Dakar coverage starts 30 minutes later today and tomorrow

Is the Dakar version running against many others in the class? Is it factory backed or otherwise a professional team? Are the others? Idle curiosity more than anything but would be good to know if apples v apples. Cheers

Originally Posted by ozscott

Is the Dakar version running against many others in the class? Is it factory backed or otherwise a professional team? Are the others? Idle curiosity more than anything but would be good to know if apples v apples. Cheers

Stock Class

3 Defenders
2 Toyota Landcruisers
2 Nissan Patrols

Competitor details including sponsors in the Stock Class here:

Competitors - Dakar

the finale





but not the last...W2RC coming up

Originally Posted by one_iota

Stock Class

3 Defenders
2 Toyota Landcruisers
2 Nissan Patrols

Competitor details including sponsors in the Stock Class here:

Competitors - Dakar

Thanks mate. Without spending a fair bit of time i could not easily tell who was factory backed. So I asked Chat GPT and even though I am always wary of its answers it tells me only the Defender is factory backed. Good to see LR doing this. Also may skew the result - not sure, as it probably depends on the amount of time and funds involved, although the factory engineers should always have an upper hand. Cheers

Even without factory backing a Land Rover Series III won the Dakar Classic...Dakar Classic