Dakar Rally 2027 to be moved from Saudi Arabia

The 2027 Dakar Rally will be moved from Saudi Arabia “following recent developments in the region”, organisers said on Sunday, after repeated attacks on the kingdom by Yemen’s Houthis.

“Dakar 2027 will go ahead. The 2027 edition will take place in a different territory” but still be organised by ASO, which runs the Dakar along with Saudi Motorsport Company (SMC), read a statement from the organisers.

A new location will be announced in the “coming days”, it added.

Fallout from US-Iran war

It is the latest sporting event to be cancelled, postponed or relocated amid the fallout from the wider US-Iran war that erupted in February.

Saudi Arabia and the government it backs in Yemen have come under sustained attack in recent weeks from the Houthis as a years-long truce broke down in the summer, shifting the focus of the war.

Yemen’s civil war, pitting the Iran-backed Houthis against the Saudi-supported and internationally recognised government, had been dormant since a ceasefire in 2022, but reignited in July as the wider Middle East war roiled the region.

According to specialist media, the preferred option for next year’s Dakar would be a start in Spain with Morocco as the destination.

It would be the first time since 2007 that the gruelling multi-stage rally, created in 1978, returns to Africa.

The race, formerly called the Paris-Dakar, used to be staged from the French capital following a route to the Senegalese capital Dakar.

But security threats along its route in North Africa meant that from 2009 it was held in South America and from 2020 in Saudi Arabia.

Could return in 2028

Organisers said they intend to bring the rally back to Saudi Arabia in 2028 to celebrate its 50th edition.

This season’s Formula One grand prix in Jeddah was cancelled, while the race in Bahrain was called off and later rescheduled under the same name in Malaysia.

The final round of the World Rally Championship in Saudi Arabia next month has also been scrapped.

An exhibition tennis tournament due to feature Novak Djokovic, Carlos Alcaraz and Alexander Zverev has been postponed until late December.

The WTA Finals were also scheduled to be held in Riyadh next month but will instead take place at Indian Wells in the US.

The last two races of the F1 season in Qatar (November 29) and Abu Dhabi (December 6) are still on the calendar, as is the Qatar MotoGP next month, but they are the subject of intense internal debate.

New route impossible

Dakar Rally organisers had hoped to keep the 2027 race in Saudi Arabia by working on a new route in the northern part of the country.

But the latest strikes, including one targeting Riyadh airport this month, which killed 13 people and injured hundreds more, have rendered that impossible.

In recent weeks, Houthi attacks on Saudi civilian infrastructure have reached a scale unprecedented since the start of the conflict in Yemen in 2014.