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Jaguar Land Rover has begun testing its Defender Dakar D7X-R prototype forward of coming into the 2026 World Rally-Raid Championship, together with the Dakar Rally.
Official footage have been proven of the mule smashing by the sand in Morocco, which, the British marque says, will mirror the “excessive desert circumstances” that await the workforce within the 2026 sequence.
The automotive will compete within the Inventory class for production-based automobiles. Though purpose-built for the sequence, it makes use of the identical D7x aluminium monocoque chassis (therefore its D7X-R title), transmission and driveline structure as the usual automotive. Equipment corresponding to suspension, bodywork and extra are very a lot anticipated to be bespoke. JLR stated additional particulars will likely be revealed later this 12 months.
JLR has additionally introduced 14-time Dakar winner Stéphane Peterhansel and Rokas Baciuška as its first two drivers.
“Finishing our first official take a look at is a large milestone and kicks off a busy calendar of testing exercise on our journey to Dakar,” stated JLR motorsport boss James Barclay. “The workforce are doing phenomenal work as we put together for the world’s most difficult off-road race in simply eight months’ time.”
The British marque will function as a works workforce for the off-road endurance occasion, utilizing the Defender’s “excessive sturdiness and functionality in essentially the most demanding motorsport competitors on earth”, it stated.
Additional particulars of its entry within the “Everest of motorsport” will likely be revealed subsequent 12 months, stated Barclay, who added: “Our first time ever with a manufacturing unit entry into the Dakar means we’re proper firstly of our journey. We’re aware of how a lot we now have to be taught and obtain earlier than taking the beginning in 2026, however we’re already nicely below means and searching ahead to the journey,”