“Our target is to beat the Toyotas”
Crew facts
RB
- Rokas Baciuska is one of the hottest young prospects in rally-raid, with three W2RC titles and three Dakar podiums in the Challenger and SSV classes. In 2025, he made an impressive debut in the Ultimate class, finishing 11th overall and winning the gruelling 48-Hour Chrono stage.
- For Dakar 2026, the 26-year-old Lithuanian has joined the Defender Rally factory team, who are hoping to make a splash in the new-look Stock class.
- Rokas has been racing since the age of seven. He began in karting and won his national title in 2010. In 2018 he started competing in World Rallycross, winning the European Super1600 Championship, then in 2019 he became the first Lithuanian to do the World Rallycross Championship.
- Rokas got his first taste of rally-raid in 2021 and made his Dakar debut in 2022, finishing third in the SSVs alongside Oriol Mena. The two men were reunited for Dakar 2025, because Rokas' usual co-driver Oriol Vidal - who returns in 2026 - had been sidelined by injury.
- Rokas came agonisingly close to winning the Dakar in 2023 but slipped to second in the SSVs behind Eryk Goczal after a final-day mechanical.
- In the World Rally-Raid Championship, Rokas secured the SSV title in 2022 and 2023 before adding his first Challenger title in 2024. He has now set his sights on the overall FIA crown.
- In June 2024, Rokas obtained a bachelor's degree in Sports and Tourism Management from the Lithuanian Sports University. He also runs his own 'RB Driving Experience' back home.
OV
- Oriol Vidal is a former quad biker turned co-driver who has been working with Rokas Baciuska since 2022, guiding the young Lithuanian to some of his biggest results. In 2023 he won the W2RC navigator's title in SSV.
- Oriol was just a year old when he was given his first electric quad, because his family ran a dealership in Spain. He started riding an 80cc quad at age three and competing at age six, mainly against motorbikes. Growing up, his father also taught him the basics of mechanics.
- While the 32-year-old Spaniard never achieved his dream of winning the Dakar on a quad, he was runner-up at the Bajas World Cup in 2016, which led to a 'game-changing' offer of co-driving at Dakar 2017. After stints with Santi Navarro, Claude Fournier, Adrian Santos and Saleh Al-Saif, he linked up with Rokas at the Rallye du Maroc 2022, where they took P1 in the SSVs. In their subsequent Dakars together they came second in SSV and third in Challenger.
- Oriol also has a degree in mechanical engineering and spent several years working as an engineer in the Superbike World Championship, before deciding to commit to being a full-time professional co-driver.
- In recent years Oriol has suffered with a persistent back injury caused by a degenerative disc disease. While it will never fully heal, he has managed to eliminate the neurological symptoms that prevented him from taking part in motorsport events, notably Dakar 2025.
- Oriol is also passionate about cycling. Having trained on a mountain bike since childhood, he discovered road cycling in 2016, and began competing at club level from 2018. He was even offered a chance to turn pro in 2019 but turned it down in favour of motorsport. After doing the Gravel World Championships in 2024, he spent part of 2025 with Portuguese continental team Efapel Cycling, finishing fourth in the individual time trial at the Catalunya Championship.
Ambition
R.B.: "After the Dakar we were planning to continue in the W2RC, but then I got a call about this new project with Defender. I found out that Stéphane and Sara would be getting involved too, so we talked about the future and came to an agreement. It will be a new journey, very different to what I've done in the past. I've done SSV, Challenger, Ultimate and now Stock, so all that's missing is the trucks! (laughs) It's nice to test every class in rally-raid. And it's great to be competing with a factory team. I think I made the right choice, because I will gain a lot of experience for the future. It's a good project and hopefully it will bring more people into the Stock class. Maybe one day we will see Defender in the Ultimates! The car surprised me because I thought it would struggle in the dunes, but it's quite nice to drive. Compared to a T1+ it has smaller tyres, a bit less height and a bit more weight, so for sure, some parts will be really rough. Our target is to beat the Toyotas, who have spent I don't know how many years winning the Stock class. It will be good to compare ourselves with them and see where we are. It's nice to have Oriol back and in good shape after his one-year break. He recently came and stayed with me in Lithuania. It's important to have a good relationship between driver and co-driver. Oriol is a great guy and a good navigator, he calms me down, and we are friends outside of the car. I had a difficult first stage at Dakar 2025. We blew a tyre and broke the arms, so we had to make repairs and lost around two hours. Maybe without that I could have been fighting for the podium! We were something like 60th after the first day, so to come back and finish 11th overall was pretty impressive. I was disappointed with the start but we had the speed. It's true that an early problem like that changes your mentality. If you are fighting at the top every day it's different. My goal is still to win the Dakar one day.”
O.V.: “Becoming a co-driver was never part of my plan, but at the end of 2016 I didn’t have enough budget to race Dakar 2017 with a quad. At that time the new SSV category was introduced, and a Spanish team was created to race Dakar. Since I was a factory Yamaha rider on a quad and I had experience with navigation, I got the offer to compete as a co-driver. At first I said no, because it felt like a step back for me, but then I thought, why not? I'll gain Dakar experience and I'll be more ready for racing with the quad next year. What I didn't know was that the decision would be a game changer for me! Rokas and I met properly at the Rallye du Maroc in 2022, our first race together. It was tough. He was young and had a lot of energy, but very little experience in rally-raid. He was used to racing alone in rallycross and karting, and always going full throttle! It took some time to gain his confidence and teach him about the discipline, but with every race we kept improving the communication and our relationship. Now I would say it’s just perfect, because we know each other very well. We've become more than friends. Obviously sometimes there's tension, because we always want to win, but we both know we're doing our best, so we accept all the mistakes and difficulties. Our hopes for Dakar 2026 are simple: to go for the class win and try to be as high as possible in the overall standings."
