In a result that’s starting to feel a bit like tradition, the Ford Ranger Raptor has stormed home to take the win in the Production 4WD class at the 2025 Tatts Finke Desert Race making it three on the trot for the blue oval’s toughest ute.
Clocking in with a record-breaking time over the brutal 460km return course between Alice Springs and Aputula (Finke), the victory cements the Raptor’s status not just as a showroom hero, but a proven off-road race weapon.
Unbeaten in Every Event It’s Entered
Driven by seasoned campaigners Brad and Adam Lovell, the factory-backed Ranger Raptor dominated an event most competitors are happy just to survive. The course was especially savage this year, with chopped-up sand sections, sharp whoops, and the kind of corrugations that’d make a seasoned outback tourer weak at the knees. And yet, the Raptor didn’t flinch.
“This truck is an absolute weapon,” said Brad Lovell after the win. “Getting the third win here at Finke, especially on such a tough track and setting a new class record, is just incredible.”
The result continues the Ranger Raptor’s unbeaten streak in major production-class off-road events, adding to its 2022 Baja 1000 class win and its back-to-back Finke wins in 2023 and 2024. That’s four events entered. Four trophies collected.
A Real Deal Race Truck Straight Off the Showroom Floor
What makes these wins even more impressive is that the Raptor competes in the Production 4WD class. That means it’s not some tube-chassis, V8 monster built in a race shop. It’s based on the same Ranger Raptor you can buy at your local dealer (with a few race-prep tweaks, sure, but the bones are what count). And those bones have just survived another 460km of Australia’s harshest desert punishment. Faster than ever before.
Ford Performance Global Director, Mark Rushbrook, called it “phenomenal,” saying the Raptor’s Finke dominance proves the durability and capability engineered into the vehicle from day one. And you’d have to agree, it’s one thing to advertise “built tough,” but another to back it up, year after year, in the desert.
A Benchmark Set in Sand
With the third straight win now in the bag and a new class record to boot the Ranger Raptor is rapidly becoming the yardstick for performance dual-cabs not just in the showroom, but in motorsport too.
For fans of Aussie off-road racing, the result also confirms something we’ve all quietly suspected for a while: that this new generation of Ford’s hero ute’s got real desert racing pedigree baked in.
And if it can handle Finke three times in a row without a DNF, chances are it’ll survive whatever punishment you’ve got planned for your next trip.
