Dakar Rally 2027 moved out of Saudi Arabia amid conflict in Middle East

The Dakar Rally, one of the world’s toughest and best-known off-road races, has been moved out of Saudi Arabia for the 2027 edition due to the “recent developments in the region”, organisers say.

The rally, scheduled for January, will now be held “in a different territory” to be announced later before a planned return to Saudi Arabia in 2028, the Amaury Sport Organisation and Saudi Motorsport Company said in a statement on Sunday.

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

It’s the latest in a series of sports events to be moved out of Saudi Arabia this year over the US-Israel war on Iran and deadly attacks by Yemen’s Houthis on Saudi Arabia.

Saudi Arabia has hosted the Dakar Rally since 2020. Reports in specialist race media said a move to Morocco or Spain is being considered.

If it is moved to Morocco, it would be the first time the Dakar has been held in Africa since 2007. The event began as a competition from Paris to Senegal’s capital, Dakar. It was cancelled on short notice in 2008 over security concerns in North Africa. Since then, it has been held first in South America, then in Saudi Arabia.

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 in Saudi Arabia 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, California, in the United States.

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.

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 a series of attacks on King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh this month, which killed 18 people and injured hundreds more, have rendered that impossible.

Fighting between government forces and Houthi fighters has intensified across multiple fronts in Yemen in recent weeks, causing a spiralling humanitarian crisis.

The war in Yemen escalated sharply when the Houthis seized strategic territory from forces loyal to the country’s internationally recognised government along the Red Sea coast last month.

The Houthi attacks on Saudi Arabia, which leads a coalition supporting Yemen’s government forces, have dealt a huge blow to the kingdom, the world’s biggest exporter of crude oil, disrupting its businesses, airlines and normal life and damaging its international image.