The second episode of Polaris’ Tough Doesn’t Quit: Defending Dakar series focuses on the development of the 2025 Polaris RZR Pro R Factory that Sébastien Loeb Racing will field in the 2025 Dakar Rally.
“To go win Dakar, you need a balance of performance and durability,” Polaris Factory Racing technical director Alex Scheuerell began in the first words of the video.
The RZR Pro R Factory comes in FIA (or international) and North American models. While the latter is used in desert racing like SCORE, the former features various differences to comply with FIA and ASO policy like the use of a windshield, sidepods for spare parts, and roof scoops for the engine intake. Roughly 60 percent of the car is identical to the RZR’s production counterpart.
In an interview I had with Scheuerell during the 2024 Dakar, which Polaris went on to win in the SSV class, he explained the “initial car was designed with the FIA rules in mind.” The rally version is also the first Gen-2 car, which was later developed for the 2024 American desert season.
Reigning SCORE Pro UTV Open champion Brock Heger, set for his first Dakar, had tested the rally model “numerous times” in advance. Speaking with me in August, he called it “really fun to drive” and “very similar” to the Baja model save for the aforementioned differences.
The pilot episode of the series was released last Friday.
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