Defender leads at the end of Dakar’s 48-hour monster marathon stage

The second leg of the exhausting ‘Marathon Stage’ might just be Defender’s best day so far on the 2026 Dakar Rally. With a clean sweep of Stock class stage wins and four of the five bringing 1-2-3 results, there’s no shortage of candidates. But on Thursday in Saudi Arabia, Rokas Baciuška led the latest team podium lockout while P2 for Stéphane Peterhansel lifted him into the same position in the overall standings. So, it might just take prize. 

Preparations started nice and early for Stage 5. Competitors had to first roll away their sleeping bags, take down tents and polish off the last of military rations (meaning a bowl of muesli for breakfast). That’s because the Thursday timetable formed the final half of the Dakar’s popular Marathon format. This essentially combines two days of running into one massive endurance test, with only a few hours’ camping to recover. 

Under Marathon rules, the team support crews can’t help with repairs at the spartan overnight ‘bivouac’ refuge. It’s down to the drivers and co-drivers to remedy mechanical niggles. Most notably for Defender, Baciuška and navigator Oriol Vidal burned the midnight oil replacing a right-rear knuckle they damaged on Wednesday. 

Only once the cars were fighting fit and the cereal eaten could attention turn to the driving. A 371-kilometre timed course (plus a 56-kilometre road section) heading east from ancient AlUla to Ha’il was made up of two-thirds gravel tracks as the rest played out over sand. A fast start through open plains slowed into tricky-to-navigate stony passages before alternating between valleys and wadis, with some camel grass thrown in for good measure.

Sara Price is making a habit of firing into an early lead in the Stock class. In this category for production-based machinery, the Defender Dakar D7X-R employs the same 4.4-litre twin-turbo V8 as the Defender OCTA and features a gearbox, drivelines, bodywork and chassis taken straight from the production line. The Prologue and Stage 2 victor repeated her trick to storm into first place. Resuming from his Wednesday win in the first part of the Marathon, Defender team-mate Peterhansel was her closest challenger. He sat about a minute behind after the first 170 kilometres as Baciuška slotted into third.

The Defenders remained in that formation past the 240-kilometre mark before Baciuška turned up the wick. Winner of the opening stage, the 26-year-old surged in front after 330 kilometres as the order of the top tree reversed. It was uber-close behind the Lithuanian. Peterhansel was just 18 seconds back and Price less than a minute off the leader. 

Testament to his and Vidal’s late-night repairs, Baciuška continued to press home the advantage. They finished the stage in four and a half hours to beat Peterhansel and co-driver Michaël Metge by 37 seconds. That’s a slender margin in Dakar terms – it works out as only a 0.1s split per kilometre. 

Admitting he was ready for a wash, Baciuška said: “Yesterday, we were lucky because we had a little bit of a problem with the car. We fixed it at the ‘bivouac’ – the Marathon Stage, with no service, you need to care about the car. Today, it was stoney with some fast parts also. It was tough actually without a shower; we smelt a bit! One more day tomorrow and then the rest day. In the second half of the rally next week, we will see how it will be.”

The duo’s second stage win helps firm up their overall lead in the Stock class as the halfway point of the off-road enduro approaches. They’ve built a healthy cushion of 44min32s. But there’s a new face in second place. Finishing runner-up on Stage 5 lifts 14-time Dakar winner Peterhansel into P2 on the combined leaderboard.

“Today was a good mix, with some tricky parts on the fast section, on the rocky section,” said ‘Mr Dakar’. “For the first time, there was some hesitation out there [with navigation]. But at the end, it’s a good team spirit with all the drivers from Defender. We are all together, really close, and this is the target: to try and bring the three cars to the end of the race.”

Defender’s mighty run in the flagship rally-raid event continues. The team maintains its 100% stage win ratio. And with Price crossing the line in third, it marks a fourth podium clean sweep. A couple of punctures and navigation hiccups meant the American and and co-driver Sean Berriman eventually ended the day 7min 37s behind Baciuška. They also copped a 15-minute penalty for missing a waypoint to sit fourth overall in the Stock class.

Price added: “The Marathon Stage was a successful one. We all made it back in one piece and we’re back early, so that’s a good thing. Going into the Marathon, we had a solid day with good pace. The car was in really good shape when we got to the overnight camp. We pitched our tents and had an OK sleep. Today was really great until the end. One thing after another kept happening. It was a little bit of an emotional day for us at the end, just to have a bad day due to our fault. The vehicle was great but there were some navigation mistakes and flat tyres.”

With competitors finally reuniting with the rest of convoy in Ha’il, the support crews will be busy checking over the cars ahead of Stage 6. Totalling 589 kilometres (with a 331-kilometre stretch making up the timed part of the route), the Friday run to the capital city of Riyadh marks the longest day on the 2026 Dakar with nearly 1,000km driven by competitors including road sections over the day. There’s plenty of sand dunes to negotiate first before a very welcome rest on Saturday. Come back here for more updates.

Defender OCTA | Master of Extreme Performance, Everywhere