The Dakar Rally is one of the biggest challenges – not only technically, logistically and physically, but also mentally. The vehicles and pilots as well as the entire team, are constantly pushed to their limits. The X-raid team has been tackling this challenge for almost 20 years now: We fight our way through deserts, over stony slopes, high altitudes and withstand enormous temperature differences, rain and mud.
Six victories at the Dakar Rally and countless successes at cross-country rallies all over the world, speak for the passion and team spirit that all of us have. But X-raid is more than just a motorsport team: vehicles such as the BMW X3 CC, the MINI ALL4 Racing or the MINI John Cooper Works Rally were developed by us in cooperation with our long-term partners and built at our headquarters.
In 2017 X-raid ventured into a new era. After 15 years of concentrating on the development of all-wheel drive vehicles, the new MINI John Cooper Works Buggy was the first self-developed and -constructed vehicle with two-wheel drive to compete in the 2018 Dakar.
In addition to developing and assembling the racing cars, X-raid also provides them to use at cross-country events worldwide. Interested customers have the possibility to buy or rent the vehicles. The team prepares the cars in its workshop and organizes the entire logistics. The mechanics and engineers take care of the preparation as well as repairing of the vehicles during the events.
Cross-country rallies take place all over the world, which why logistics are a very large and extremely important part of X-raid. The transportation of the equipment by our service trucks within Europe or by ship or air freight to other countries is organized by X-raid and is one of the daily challenges of the team. In 2019 alone X-raid competed in 14 races in 12 countries!
The winning run continued and Carlos Sainz and Lucas Cruz secured X-raid the fifth Dakar victory in team history in Saudi Arabia. Stéphane Peterhansel and Paulo Fiuza took third place in the second MINI JCW Buggy. 2021 year later it was the other way round: Peterhansel, this time together with Edouard Boulanger, won the Dakar and Sainz with Cruz got third.
