Dakar 2027: rally leaves Saudi Arabia for Morocco

Dakar 2027 will not be held in Saudi Arabia. According to RacingNews365 and Marca, organiser ASO has decided to move the rally-raid because of unrest in the Middle East, following attacks attributed to the Houthis. The race would return to Africa, in Morocco, from 9 to 22 January 2027. No official confirmation has been published yet: it is expected in the coming days.

What we know about the format

According to Marca, ASO presented the final plan to teams on Monday 19 October:

• a prologue on 9 January, followed by 12 competition days, with a rest day planned for 16 January and the finish on 22 January;
• around 4,300 kilometres of special stages, slightly fewer than usual but not far below the Saudi editions;
• no classic marathon stage, but a marathon-refuge stage, with no mechanical assistance between two days and a bivouac in the middle of the desert;
• an event that will officially be called "Dakar 2027", the 49th edition.

RacingNews365 says the bivouac would open on 5 January, with technical checks in the following days. Mundo Deportivo places those checks in Europe, from 6 to 8 January.

A start in Europe?

The start and finish cities are not yet known. Marca explains that ASO wants to hold scrutineering, the prologue and probably the first day of racing in a European city, with Spain and Portugal as candidates. RacingNews365 mentions Portimão as a possibility. Lisbon, Granada and Barcelona have all hosted the Dakar start when it was run in Africa, Marca recalls.

According to Mundo Deportivo, the opening would include two stages in Portugal or Spain before the move to Morocco, in the Merzouga desert. This plan is more ambitious than the eight-day plan B mentioned earlier. Mundo Deportivo gives a distance of 4,900 km, a different figure from Marca's: the final route remains to be confirmed.

Why Morocco matters to the crews

Marca recalls that Fernando Alonso and Marc Coma tested their future Aston Martin, a converted Dacia Sandrider, in Morocco last week, the country where they made their rally-raid debut. Coma won there three times on a bike (2006, 2009 and 2014) and now runs the Morocco Rally. The paper adds that car entries were well below normal for this time of year.

Organisation of the Moroccan event remains tied to ProDunes: Pep Vila told Mundo Deportivo that his team would make it easy for the Dakar to come to Morocco.

Pending the ASO statement, Dakar 2027 is therefore taking the shape of an African edition longer than expected, with a European prologue. Dates, exact distance and start and finish cities should be checked against the official announcement.