The Dakar Rally will only go through Saudi Arabia again next year. The illustrious desert rally starts on January 3 in Jeddah and lasts until January 15.
The Dakar Rally only went through Saudi Arabia this year for the first time in history, after the rally had spanned South America for eleven years. Organizer ASO tried to add more countries to the 2021 schedule, but that did not work.
“We are not getting the route that we initially had in mind,” Dakar director David Castera said on Thursday in conversation with Motorsport.com. “We wanted to include two or three additional countries in the schedule, but the COVID-19 virus made that impossible.”
“Our goal for the coming years is to add more countries. For now it is no problem, because Saudi Arabia is very large and offers many options. The route is completely different from last year. Only 50 to 80 kilometers corresponds to the 2020 route. “
The exact schedule for the Dakar Rally will be announced in November. The ASO already says that this year, the safety of the drivers has been taken more into account when drawing up the course. In the previous edition, the Dutchman Edwin Straver and the Portuguese Paulo Gonçalves were killed.
The Dakar Rally started in 1979 with a route from Paris to the Senegalese capital Dakar. Until 2007, Africa was always included in the route schedule, but in 2008 the rally was moved to South America due to terrorist threats. Since last year, the Middle East has been the stage of the desert rally.
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