Dakar Rally 2027: The African Return, Starting Where the 2008 Race Never Did

On 5 May, at the Institut du Monde Arabe in Paris, Dakar director David Castera unveiled the route for Dakar Rally 2027: a start and finish in King Abdullah Economic City, three new stages by the Red Sea, and 5,320 km of timed racing, the highest figure of the Saudi era. Five and a half months later, ASO and the Saudi Motorsport Company abandoned it.

ASO and the Saudi Motorsport Company said Dakar Saudi Arabia 2027, scheduled from 1 to 15 January, “will not be held in the Kingdom, following recent developments in the region.” They called the decision “exceptional and one-off.” The new location would be announced in the coming days. A return is promised for 2028.

Reuters reported on 21 October, four days before the announcement, that the race would return to Africa, citing three people involved in the World Rally-Raid Championship, two of them drivers. Under the shape those sources described, the race would open with a prologue in Spain or Portugal and then run about 12 stages in Morocco, from 9 to 22 January. Spanish papers AS and La Vanguardia, citing what ASO told teams, added the working detail: verifications on 6 January and the prologue on 7 or 8 January. A rest day falls on 16 January, with much of the racing in the desert around Merzouga, including a marathon stage. The timed distance in that reporting is about 4,300 km, roughly 1,020 km less than the Saudi plan.

ASO had first tried to keep the race in Saudi Arabia. Two drivers and a team member told Reuters the organisers had been working on an alternative route in the north of the kingdom. That plan ended after the 10 October strike on Riyadh’s King Khalid International Airport, which killed at least 12 people and wounded more than 300. The airport suspended operations. It reopened only two terminals, on 25 October, the day of the Dakar announcement.

Once before, ASO cancelled a Dakar outright for security reasons. On 4 January 2008, the day before the race was due to start in Lisbon, the organisers called off the entire edition. Four French tourists had been murdered in Mauritania on 24 December 2007, and direct threats had been made against the race. Eight of the 15 stages were to run through Mauritania, and about 550 competitors were already in Lisbon when the decision came. ASO said then that “no other decision but the cancellation of the sporting event could be taken.” A one-off Central Europe Rally in Hungary and Romania followed in February 2008, and the Dakar moved to South America from 2009 to 2019.

Under the reported plan, the 2027 race would start where the 2008 race was supposed to: an Iberian prologue, then Morocco. The cancelled 2008 route was to run from Lisbon through Spain and Morocco, then Western Sahara and Mauritania to Dakar, with a rest day in Nouakchott. The count carries the same loop: 2027 is the rally’s 49th edition, and 2028 the 50th, although only 48 Dakars have actually been run, because the numbering includes 2008, a year with no race.

Formula One’s Saudi Arabian Grand Prix in Jeddah was dropped entirely, and its Bahrain race moved to Sepang in Malaysia, run on 2 to 4 October under the Bahrain name. The Six Kings Slam tennis event moved from 21-24 October to 27-30 December, and the WTA Finals moved from Riyadh to Indian Wells. The Asian Tour’s Saudi International was postponed indefinitely, cycling’s Urban World Championships were cancelled, and the World Rally Championship dropped Saudi Arabia from its calendar. The Asian Football Confederation has left open postponing the Asian Cup, due to start in Saudi Arabia on 7 January, to 2028, and the Middle East Rally Championship’s Jeddah round was cancelled.

The last Dakar run in Saudi Arabia finished in Yanbu, where 247 of the 317 vehicles that started crossed the line. The field would ship its vehicles to Morocco by sea, through ports such as Tanger Med or Nador, according to the team reporting.