The 2027 Dakar Rally will not be held in Saudi Arabia. Because of the security situation in the Middle East, organiser ASO is relocating the 49th edition to Europe and Africa. The full Dakar format remains intact, with a prologue, twelve stages and more than 4,000 kilometres of competitive special stages.
The rally does shift in the calendar: the prologue takes place on 9 January in Europe, after which the caravan crosses to Africa by ferry. The first stage follows there on 10 January. The finish is scheduled for 22 January.
With that, the Dakar returns to Africa for the first time since 2007. Exactly which countries will be involved and where the start and finish will be located is not yet known. ASO is awaiting official confirmation from the governments concerned and expects to present the new route early next week.
What participants know now
Teams and participants were informed of the decision on Monday 19 October. In an update sent to Dutch participants, ASO’s plan is described as final. That update also contains the first practical schedule: the first bivouac opens on 5 January, and the technical and administrative scrutineering takes place from 6 to 8 January. According to the same message, it involves 4,300 kilometres of competitive special stages.
Entries close on 16 November, with additional time for payments and administrative processing. After the route presentation, a second newsletter will follow with logistical details and exact dates. The location of the rest day and the marathon stage have also not yet been announced.
A drastic change of course
The decision runs counter to the plan ASO presented in Paris on 5 May. At that point, an eighth Saudi edition from 1 to 15 January was still the assumption, with start and finish in King Abdullah Economic City on the Red Sea and a rest day in Bisha. At 5,320 kilometres of competitive special stages, it would have been the longest Dakar of the Saudi era, and the first there above the 5,000-kilometre mark. ASO director Yann Le Moenner acknowledged at the time that the geopolitical situation raised questions, but maintained that the organisation had guarantees that the rally could go ahead in Saudi Arabia.
The guarantees proved untenable. Since February, when the wider conflict surrounding Iran escalated, targets in Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states have come under attack. Later, the Houthi rebels from Yemen expanded their attacks to shipping in the Red Sea and the southwest of Saudi Arabia: the area where several southern stages of the original route were planned. Logistics also became more difficult, because vehicles and equipment are shipped from Europe via the Suez Canal and the Red Sea, and insurers raised the premiums for that route. According to Speedweek, ASO was unable to find an insurer for the Dakar in September.
On 15 September, ASO still reported that preparations were going according to plan. Two days later, the FIA cancelled the WRC round Rally Saudi Arabia, after Toyota and Hyundai indicated that their personnel could not travel to the country due to internal safety rules. The Formula 1 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix had also already been cancelled earlier this year. In the weeks that followed, two scenarios circulated in the international press: a Saudi route shifted to the north, or a move to Africa. One of the variants discussed assumed a prologue on the Iberian Peninsula and just eight stages in Morocco. In the end, a full edition of twelve stages was chosen.
Contract and name
ASO and Saudi Arabia have a contract running through 2029. According to the Argentine outlet Cadena 3, the relocation of the 2027 edition is happening in consultation with Saudi Arabia. According to the Catalan newspaper Ara, it was uncertain for a long time whether the rally could keep the Dakar name outside Saudi Arabia, due to commercial agreements with the country. That name is now being retained.
Points to note
The main question for now is: where exactly? Spanish and Argentine media name Spain as a possible location for the prologue and Morocco as the country where the organisation is working on the route, but neither has been officially confirmed. Teams therefore have to enter, budget and arrange shipping without knowing the countries. On top of that, there are not even seven weeks between the close of entries and the opening of the first bivouac.
In addition, the “full format” is primarily a matter of the number of stages. At 4,000 to 4,300 kilometres of competitive special stages, the rally will be well over 1,000 kilometres shorter than the 5,320 kilometres announced in May. That also removes the premise of an extra-long, tougher edition that ASO emphatically put forward at the time.
The decision has consequences for the rest of the 2027 rally-raid calendar as well. The Dakar opens the 2027 FIA World Rally-Raid Championship, which had been set up precisely so that vehicles could be transported overland after the Dakar to the second round, the Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge. That logistical link now disappears, since the Dakar is not being held in the Middle East.
For the Dutch rally-raid world, there is one more practical point. The 18th Africa Eco Race starts on 24 January in Tangier and ends on 6 February at Lac Rose near Dakar, just two days after the finish of the Dakar Rally. Should the Dakar indeed run largely through Morocco, then two major rally-raids will be held shortly after one another in largely the same area. For teams involved in both events, that could put pressure on personnel, equipment and transport.
Back to Africa
The Dakar was held in Europe and Africa through 2007, with its final edition being the rally from Lisbon to Dakar. The 2008 edition was cancelled a day before the start due to a terror threat in Mauritania. After that, the rally moved to South America (2009 through 2019) and, since 2020, to Saudi Arabia. With the 2027 edition, the Dakar returns, after almost twenty years, to the continent where it originated, under circumstances that no one had foreseen at the route presentation in May.
With the route presentation expected next week, it should become clear exactly what the Dakar 2027 will look like. Rallytracks.nl is following the developments.
