Dune and dusted

I am behind the wheel of a Mini, but from where I’m sitting, it feels nothing like one. I’m tearing through desert dunes in Dubai with a six-cylinder diesel motor barking and whistling under what looks like a Countryman hood. Let me introduce you to the Mini All4 Racing, which has dominated the brutal Dakar rally for the last three years.

It may look like a beefed-up Mini Countryman, but except for the headlights and windscreen, there are no parts in common between the two. The All4 Racing has a steel tubular trellis frame on which a carbonfibre body sits. The body panels are larger than those on the standard car and it has two shock absorbers per wheel to endure the punishment it takes for the 15-day, 9,375km Dakar challenge. Now 307bhp carrying nearly two tonnes of weight may not be the recipe for outrageous performance, but some of the other numbers are truly astonishing – a 420-litre endurance fuel tank, Michelin Latitude tyres that with their alloys weigh 27kg apiece, three spare tyres, and 250mm of suspension travel (restricted by regulations).

Buckled up in the pilot seat with a professional navigator as my ally, I set out into what seems like an infinite desert. The All4, as its name suggests, sends power to all four wheels via a six-speed sequential gearbox. I pull back the gearlever, build up some revs and let go of the heavy clutch, the Michelins grip the sand like it’s tarmac, and the Mini lunges forward with surprising gusto. The engine is extremely rev happy, but as soon as it does run out of revs, one pull on the sequential lever and the motor reloads for another blast of adrenaline.