Dakar Rally 2027 Set for Portugal and Morocco After Saudi Hosting Cancelled

The 2027 edition of the Dakar Rally is officially scheduled to take place across Portugal and Morocco, following a sudden decision by race organisers to remove the event from Saudi Arabia over security worries. The Amaury Sport Organisation announced that the upcoming competition will begin with a prologue and opening stage in the Algarve region of Portugal, before moving across the Strait to traverse the entirety of Morocco.

Running under the designation of the forty-ninth edition, the rally will span from January ninth to January twenty-third, pending formal ratification from the International Automobile Federation World Motor Sport Council. The revised dates mark a slight shift from the original schedule. The route will cover a cumulative distance of seven thousand eight hundred twenty-four kilometres, featuring over four thousand three hundred kilometres of timed special stages stretching from Loule-Faro to Marrakesh. Eleven distinct stages alongside a scheduled rest day in Agadir have been mapped out across Moroccan territory.

The Dakar Rally will return to Africa for the first time since two thousand eight following the relocation.

Directors overseeing the event acknowledged the compressed planning window but insisted that the course will maintain the rigorous standards associated with the endurance contest. Dakar director David Castera noted that planners successfully formulated a genuine rally course despite the tight timeframe. This temporary relocation brings the competition back to the African continent for the initial instance since two thousand eight, recalling the historic roots of the contest that began in nineteen seventy-eight as a trek from France to Senegal.

Industry observers note that the Saudi Arabian hosting revocation is treated as an isolated occurrence by event coordinators. The Amaury Sport Organisation clarified that the alteration is strictly exceptional, with intentions already established to bring the fiftieth anniversary edition back to the Middle Eastern kingdom in twenty-eight. Saudi Arabia had previously served as the exclusive host nation for the endurance competition since twenty twenty, following a decade-long stint in South America that lasted from two thousand nine through twenty nineteen.