Defender Octa vs Ford Raptor T1+: Dakar rally track test

The OCTA is finally where it belongs – or, at least, in the environment it was created to tackle. This isn’t Chelsea; it is Portimão’s rally course. And the Defender is attacking it in a manner that no other modern SUV would contemplate.

It is an odd thing, really. Until now, nobody has built an SUV expressly for high-speed off-road driving. Apart from the Americans, that is. They understand the appeal of fitting Fox dampers beneath an F150 and heading out to have fun. In Europe, however, we tend to get SUVs trying to impersonate super saloons, or proper off-road machines re-domesticated with V8 engines and 23-inch wheels. The Defender Octa is therefore new territory for us: different, slightly ridiculous and a Defender with a new focus. It moves beyond the ubiquitous G63, thanks not only to its twin-turbo V8 but also to the fact that it has been given a clear job and purpose.

Go and play. That is the simplest description. This is neither fussy nor delicate; instead, it feels like the sort of vehicle that would display battle scars with pride, assuming an owner were brave enough to treat their £145,300 purchase in that fashion. We are doing exactly that today, with the Defender charging along the routes and tracks that climb the hillsides above the circuit.

Photography: Mark Riccioni

Defender Octa: built for fast off-road driving

This is my preferred form of off-roading: a rapid attack rather than a painstaking crawl. The Octa behaves like a 2.5-tonne rally car, Scandi-flicking into bends before the 626bhp V8 flings rocks and stones towards the scenery – and against its reinforced underbody. In the more heavily banked corners, it sometimes generates more than 1g of lateral force. That is seriously substantial grip.

Its suspension is the key. It employs the same hydraulically cross-linked 6D system found beneath the Range Rover Sport SV, which did not impress us at PCOTY last year. On a circuit, that car hopped and skipped about, with more tyre grip than the system could manage. Here, on chunky 20-inch Goodyear Wranglers, the result is altogether different. It is compliant yet controlled, handles its weight superbly and, best of all, does not judder or shake as it blasts along because the suspension is so effectively isolated.

There is admittedly little feedback through the steering or other controls, but speed quickly inspires confidence. It feels like a tough truck, entirely willing to indulge the most enjoyable sort of messing about. Next year, Defender plans to demonstrate exactly how strong and durable it is by entering something closely linked to the Dakar rally.

There, it will face the full-on madness of the Ford Raptor T1+. Naturally it will: the Raptor is a top-level silhouette racer intended, somehow, to evoke a pickup. The Defender D7XR, meanwhile, will run in the T2/Stock class. It is overdue. We have repeatedly argued that the Defender should demonstrate its dependability through some form of extreme test, and it will have that opportunity in Saudi Arabia in January 2026.

Ford Raptor T1+ and Nani Roma’s Dakar line

The Raptor has arrived with Nani, and Nani is mad. As we set off into the scenery – only then do I realise I have forgotten to attach the HANS device to my helmet – it becomes immediately clear that he does not interpret tracks as you or I would. We see corridors, with bushes, trees, gullies and banks establishing the boundaries.

That is not how Dakar operates, and so it is not how Nani operates either. It is a navigation event: you travel wherever you like in order to reach the required point by the fastest, most direct route. He now applies that same principle to our rally stage. A right-hander lies ahead, but he has turned left, sending us hurtling across an off-camber slope after spotting a shortcut that avoids a tight slalom between two trees. The vegetation brushes against the Raptor’s armoured underside, doing little more than tickling its belly.

This is wide-angle driving, the complete reverse of tunnel vision, and Nani’s internal route radar is working in ways I cannot begin to understand. Suddenly, he points straight at an almost vertical bank taller than the Raptor. Brace, brace, brace. We slam into it and the suspension seems not to register the event, though our direction has changed completely. All I can see is sky. Everything falls silent. A moment later, all I can see is ground.

Remember the Arctic foxes in Attenborough programmes that dive headfirst into snow? The Raptor delivers a very respectable imitation. Every part of me tenses. Once again, the suspension and 37-inch tyres absorb the impact of a six-foot nose-dive with the same ease as a Rolls tackles a speed bump.

After regaining my land legs, I inspect the underside. Each corner’s twin-damper layout is surrounded by so many pipes, tubes and valves that it resembles a steam engine. It is absurd, but its capability is extraordinary. Over the past decade, I have been fortunate enough to drive several Dakar cars, including the BRX Hunter and Audi’s sophisticated RS Q e-tron hybrid, yet this genuinely changes the game.

14 minutes 17 seconds

It seems quicker and nimbler, carrying its mass more lightly. In character, it is closer to a WRC car. That perhaps becomes less surprising once you discover that it was engineered and developed by M-Sport, Ford’s long-standing rally partner. It is the finest thing to drive off road, not least because of the outrageous sound it produces while charging about. Those working in the pit lane say they cannot hear the Revuelto flying down the main straight because of the noise this machine makes from hundreds of metres away. It is a proper, uncorked 5.0-litre Coyote V8 race engine in a spaceframe chassis that can be aimed at anything and made to win.

The Octa was impressive here, but the Raptor was made for this place. It is all it has known, and all it ever will know. The cabin is cramped and the controls have deliberately been made light to limit fatigue, but driving it delivers a feeling of complete, bulletproof invincibility. This is a car built to take a beating.

As Nani explained before I drove it, it has to be driven hard. You need to get the weight moving because, once you do, barely any steering is required to alter direction. Small inputs are enough: simply establish an angle of attack, pin the throttle and let the three locking differentials and permanent four-wheel drive handle everything else.

Nani tells me that too much angle is undesirable, since a tyre is most likely to puncture when it slides sideways. I drove Hyundai’s i20 WRC car here at Speed Week six years ago, and the two share noticeable similarities in their manners and behaviour. Only the scale is different. Both drives belong in my collection of special memories.

Taking the Defender Octa and Raptor to tarmac

As we did with that car, we also took this one onto the tarmac. Why would you not? It was an opportunity to see it alongside the belly scrapers and chin scratchers. The result was appropriately idiotic. Its hydraulic handbrake allowed it to create some wonderful shapes, although we discovered it mostly converts 520 litres of fuel into noise rather than forward motion. A restricted 355bhp, along with Dakar’s 112mph maximum speed limit, works well in the rough but feels dull when the Octa has almost twice the power. Not that the muscular Brit feels like a 4.0secs-to-62mph machine.

If Land Rover can coax a car or two to the end of the Dakar next year that will be a victory in itself

Nor does it feel especially content on a hard surface. We have uncovered the Octa’s unhappy place, because it does not quite know what to do there. Brake into a corner and it will four-wheel drift past the apex, but otherwise it scrabbles around with understeer.

Road-focused tyres would plainly transform matters, but the Octa was never intended as a hard-surface machine. We already know it is an excellent, if extremely thirsty, daily driver, and there is ample scope between quiet cruiser and cross-country charger to satisfy us. That breadth of ability is far preferable to an Urus or Cayenne Turbo.

In an ideal world, it would possess a little more edge, particularly from the engine, which is overly muted and subdued even when it is not being entirely drowned out by the Raptor. I suspect that will be most owners’ first modification. I am not sure where the Octa could be used in the UK: we simply lack the wide-open playgrounds in which America specialises. There is also a depressing sense that it will be used exactly like every other Defender, just more obnoxiously. That is unfortunate, because there is nothing else quite like it.

Land Rover has identified a niche and filled it exceptionally well. Should Land Rover persuade one or two cars to reach the end of the Dakar next year, that alone will count as a victory. The Raptor? It will be fighting at the sharp end, producing enough noise to make the Saudi sand tremble.

Nani knows best

Nani Roma is a Dakar veteran. He has contested the world’s toughest and most punishing endurance race for 30 years, winning it on both two wheels and four. Above all else, Dakar demands experience, not merely behind the wheel but also during vehicle development.

Before joining Ford last year, Nani raced for Prodrive in the BRX Hunter. The two do indeed look strongly related – the Hunter has since evolved into the Dacia Sandrider – with both using a front mid-engine layout, an enormous 500-litre fuel tank behind the seats and two spare wheels positioned along their flanks. When it comes to Dakar, imitation is clearly the sincerest form of flattery.

“But compared to the Hunter, this is much more advanced,” comments Nani. “We have really worked on siting the occupants as centrally as possible, so they’re not exposed to the pitch, dive and roll. This means it’s less tiring to drive so we can go harder, for longer.”