Team Land Cruiser Toyota Auto Body will be facing their toughest adversary in a long time when Land Rover debuts at the 2026 Dakar Rally, so the Japanese outfit has been busy trying to develop a worthy challenger. With two months until Dakar, the team decided to pull double duty in Morocco by racing the Baja Morocco followed by the Rallye du Maroc.

After ten days of racing total, they have to hope things are in place ahead of January’s action.

The Baja Morocco, which took place a week before the Rallye du Maroc, was Toyota Auto Body’s first non-FIA rally since the 2019 Silk Way Rally; the Carta Rallye in April, also held in Morocco, would’ve had that claim had the team not encountered a major issue in shakedown that forced a withdrawal. Akira Miura entered the race on his own alongside navigator Jean-Michel Polato, where they retired from the first stage with a mechanical issue and had a few clean days before ultimately bowing out.

At both Moroccan rallies, Miura and teammate Ronald Basso raced the new Land Cruiser 300 GR Sport that complies with incoming FIA Stock regulations. Since the car hadn’t been fully homologated by the federation yet, both were assigned to an “Experimental Stock” class for the Rallye du Maroc that otherwise operated the same as the standard production category.

Being the only Stock entrants at Morocco isn’t a new phenomenon for the team, so the rally is often treated as more like a glorified test session. In fact, Basso was the only T2 driver entered at the 2024 Rallye du Maroc since Miura was racing in Ultimate.

Of course, that won’t be the case starting 2026 as they’ll have to do battle with Land Rover and other manufacturers planning to take part under the new rulebook. The team had even tested in Morocco in May to prep.

In the meantime, both drivers got to work at the RdM. Basso beat Miura by 25 seconds to be the fastest Stock car in the Prologue. Miura then ‘won’ every timed leg save for Stage 4. Basso encountered a handful of snags that caused him to fall behind by over 26 minutes in the third stage, which added up for him to place 74 minutes back overall.

Neither driver was classified in the final FIA results, though their times would’ve been good for 43rd (Miura) and 45th (Basso).

Results

Finish	Number	Driver	Navigator	Team	Total Time	Margin
1	501	Akira Miura*	Jean-Michel Polato	Team Land Cruiser Toyota Auto Body	21:03:43	Leader
2	500	Ronald Basso*	Julien Menard	Team Land Cruiser Toyota Auto Body	22:17:46	+ 1:14:03

Stage winners

Stage	Overall	Driver	Time
Prologue	90	Ronald Basso*	15:27.1
Stage 1	64	Akira Miura*	3:35:30
Stage 2	55	Akira Miura*	5:11:08
Stage 3	57	Akira Miura*	4:58:03
Stage 4	72	Ronald Basso*	3:44:38
Stage 5	52	Akira Miura*	3:46:06
Power Stage	38	Akira Miura*	25:55

Featured image credit: Team Land Cruiser Toyota Auto Body