On Saturday, during the Rally Sardinia, the WRC Promoter announced that Saudi Arabia will host its first-ever WRC event in 2025.
The agreement between the promoter and Saudi Arabia is reportedly the largest in the promoter’s history. While typical contracts span one, two, or three years, Saudi Arabia’s deal covers the next ten years.
The value of the contract is astronomical. WRC event organizers usually pay fees to the WRC Promoter, varying by country. Saudi Arabia has recently invested heavily in top-tier sports, especially football, golf, and Formula One. It is presumed that the WRC contract is worth at least tens of millions of euros.
The WRC returns to the Middle East for the first time since 2011, when a championship round was held in Jordan. The Rally Saudi Arabia will be based in Jeddah, a city on the Red Sea coast, which also hosts Saudi Arabia’s F1 race.
“From 2025 we will proudly host Formula 1, Formula E, Extreme E, the Dakar Rally and now WRC and Rally Saudi Arabia in the Kingdom – an extraordinary accomplishment,” said Prince Khalid bin Sultan Al-Abdullah Al-Faisal, Chairman of the Saudi Automobile and Motorcycle Federation.
Mohammed Ben Sulayem, President of the FIA, is excited about the WRC’s return to the Middle East. Ben Sulayem himself won the Middle East Rally Championship 14 times during his rally career.
“It has been over a decade since the FIA World Rally Championship last visited the region, and from my own experience, I know very well the unique challenges that the drivers and co-drivers will face when Rally Saudi Arabia gets underway in 2025,” Ben Sulayem said.
The Saudi Arabian WRC rally is scheduled to be the final round of the 2025 season, taking place at the end of November. In recent years, Japan has hosted the season finale, but next year, the penultimate round will be held in the Land of the Rising Sun.
Saudi Arabia has its own issues due to the country’s human rights situation. RallyJournal.com asked the WRC Promoter’s event director, Simon Larkin, if the promoter sees any problems with the series going to Saudi Arabia.
“We do not see any,” was Larkin’s response.
