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MINI and its German motorsport partner X-Raid Team will enter the gruelling 2018 Dakar Rally with not one, but two different machines, in order to capitalise on various regulations.
As a result, that means both an all-wheel drive MINI John Cooper Works Rally and a rear-wheel drive MINI John Cooper Works Buggy will take part in the event in January, which starts in Peru and works its way through Andean Bolivia and Argentina, climbing to 4,000 metres (13,123 feet) in the process.
The MINIs will take on sand dunes, deserts, rock and boulder fields, and vertiginous mountain roads as part of the Dakar, which means they need plenty of grunt. Handily, both the JCW Rally and the JCW Buggy are powered by a 3.0-litre straight-six turbodiesel, generating a robust 340hp and a mammoth 800Nm to back it up.
The Buggy, in particular, has a tubular steel-frame chassis with a specially-designed carbon fibre-reinforced plastic (CFRP) and Kevlar body, the buggy-look exterior designed in close co-operation with MINI Design and said to be aerodynamically optimised. The vehicle has already undergone an intensive test programme during recent months, including in places like Morocco and Hungary, and the reason MINI is entering both the proven JCW Rally and the JCW Buggy is because of a set of Dakar rules that give two-wheel drive competitors certain technical advantages.
Sven Quandt, team manager of X-Raid, said: "This has been the biggest project in our company's history so far and we have worked extremely hard at it. During the testing period, the Buggy never had to stop once due to a technical problem, which is really quite remarkable. But, despite all the euphoria, we must definitely not forget the MINI John Cooper Works Rally. There are tracks and types of terrain where an all-wheel drive has advantages. What is more, our car is extremely reliable."
MINI and X-Raid won four consecutive Dakar rallies between 2012 and 2015, and the team is hoping to recreate that success in 2018. Sebastien Mackensen, senior vice-president of MINI, added: "With these two cars, we have the most powerful MINI family that ever raced at the Dakar Rally."
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In total, MINI and X-Raid will enter seven cars into the Dakar 2018, with the JCW Buggies piloted by Mikko Hirvonen (Finland), Bryce Menzies (USA) and Yazeed Al-Rajhi (Saudi Arabia). Driving the JCW Rally MINIs are Orlando Terranova (Argentina), Jakub Przygonski (Poland), Joan 'Nani' Roma (Spain) and Boris Garafulic (Chile).
The race starts on January 6 in Lima, Peru's capital, and concludes on January 20 in the Argentinean city of Cordoba. It will be the 40th edition of the Dakar and the tenth running of the race on the South American continent, after the original Paris to Senegal's Dakar route was abandoned due to safety concerns in 2007.