Dakar Rally Route and Stages in Saudi Arabia: How ASO Maps the World’s Toughest Race

The creation of a Dakar Rally route is one of the most complex logistical and creative exercises in professional motorsport. Each year, the route designers at Amaury Sport Organisation must conceive a 7,500-to-8,500-kilometer itinerary across Saudi Arabia that tests every dimension of rally raid competition — speed, endurance, navigation, mechanical reliability, and psychological resilience — while accommodating the practical requirements of moving an entire sporting circus of over 3,000 people through some of the most remote terrain on Earth. Across seven Saudi editions from 2020 through 2026, ASO’s route team has progressively revealed the Kingdom’s extraordinary geographic diversity, transforming what many outsiders assumed was a uniformly flat, sandy desert into a testing ground of volcanic fields, mountain passes, gravel plateaus, coastal plains, dried riverbeds, and sand seas of staggering scale.

This analysis examines the route design philosophy, the specific terrain types encountered across Saudi Arabia’s regions, the navigation challenges that define modern Dakar competition, and how seven years of Saudi hosting have expanded the Dakar’s competitive vocabulary.

Route Design Philosophy

The Dakar Rally route serves multiple functions simultaneously. It must provide a sporting challenge severe enough to identify the most capable competitors while remaining safe enough that the inevitable incidents do not become fatalities. It must showcase the host country’s geography in a way that delivers compelling television content and tourism promotion. It must be logistically feasible, with each stage start and finish point connected to bivouac locations that can accommodate the entire rally operation overnight. And it must offer sufficient novelty each year that returning competitors cannot rely on terrain memory to gain an unfair advantage.

ASO’s route design team begins the planning process approximately 18 months before each edition, working with Saudi geographical surveys, satellite imagery, and local terrain specialists to identify potential stage routes. The team conducts multiple reconnaissance missions across the Kingdom, driving proposed routes in standard vehicles to assess terrain difficulty, surface quality, navigation complexity, and safety considerations.

The route typically comprises a prologue — a short, spectator-friendly stage on the opening day — followed by 12 to 13 competitive stages over 14 racing days, with one rest day positioned near the midpoint. The total distance is divided between “liaison” sections (road driving between bivouac and stage start/finish, where competitors must obey traffic rules) and “special” sections (the timed competitive portions where the racing takes place).

The timed special sections typically total between 4,000 and 5,000 kilometers, representing approximately 55-65 percent of the total route distance. The remaining distance is liaison, which serves both a logistical purpose (moving the rally between regions) and a competitive purpose (testing mechanical reliability over sustained road driving that accumulates wear on vehicles already stressed by the competitive sections).

Saudi Arabia’s Terrain Diversity

Saudi Arabia’s landmass of approximately 2.15 million square kilometers encompasses a range of terrain types that has surprised many observers who assumed the Kingdom was simply “flat desert.” The seven Dakar editions have revealed at least eight distinct terrain categories, each presenting unique competitive challenges.

Sand Dunes (Erg)

The Kingdom’s sand desert regions — most notably the Rub’ al Khali (Empty Quarter) and the Nafud Desert — contain dune fields that range from modest undulations to massive sand mountains exceeding 250 meters in height. Dune driving is the Dakar’s signature challenge: competitors must read the sand’s composition and angle, judge the precise speed required to crest each dune without launching dangerously over the far side, and navigate through featureless landscapes where GPS waypoints and roadbook instructions are the only references.

The Empty Quarter, featured prominently in the 2023 and 2025 editions, represents the most extreme dune challenge available to the Dakar organizers anywhere in the world. The Rub’ al Khali covers approximately 650,000 square kilometers — an area larger than France — and its interior contains dune formations that have not been traversed by motor vehicles outside of Dakar competition. The soft sand conditions test vehicle mechanical systems to destruction: overheating engines, clogged air filters, burst tires, and broken suspension components are routine hazards in the dune stages.

Gravel Plains (Reg)

Large areas of Saudi Arabia are covered by gravel plains — flat or gently undulating surfaces covered by stones ranging from pebble to boulder size. These “reg” surfaces permit high speeds but punish navigation errors severely, as the featureless landscape offers few visual references and the monotony of sustained high-speed driving creates fatigue-induced concentration lapses.

Gravel plains are particularly destructive to tires. The sharp-edged stones can puncture sidewalls and shred tread at speeds above 150 km/h, forcing competitors to balance speed against tire preservation. Teams typically carry multiple spare tires, but the time required for each tire change — approximately 5-10 minutes for experienced crews — adds up across a two-week rally.

Volcanic Basalt (Harrat)

The western regions of Saudi Arabia contain extensive harrat — fields of volcanic basalt that create some of the most technically demanding terrain in the Dakar. The dark, sharp-edged rocks are extremely destructive to tires, suspension components, and vehicle undercarriages. Navigation through harrat requires precise line selection, as the difference between a traversable path and an impassable rock field can be measured in meters.

The Harrat Khaybar and Harrat Rahat fields in the Medina region have featured in multiple Dakar editions, providing stages that test precision driving and vehicle durability rather than outright speed. The visual contrast between the dark volcanic rock and the surrounding golden sand creates dramatic television imagery that has become a signature of the Saudi Dakar.

Wadi Systems (Dried Riverbeds)

Saudi Arabia’s extensive wadi systems — dried riverbeds that carry water only during infrequent rainfall — provide natural corridors through the Kingdom’s mountain ranges and escarpments. Wadi driving involves navigating surfaces that alternate between sand, gravel, clay, and bedrock, often with steep-sided banks that constrain vehicle paths and create bottleneck points where faster competitors must find a way past slower traffic.

The wadis of the Hejaz region, particularly those draining from the mountains toward the Red Sea coast, have provided some of the Dakar’s most technically demanding stages. The narrow channels, blind corners, and variable surface conditions test car control skills that dune specialists may not possess, creating opportunities for versatile drivers to gain time against rivals who are faster in open desert, as detailed in the Dakar Rally spectator guide.

Mountain Terrain

The Hejaz mountain range, running parallel to the Red Sea coast, and the Aseer mountains in the southwest provide elevation changes that distinguish the Saudi Dakar from the relatively flat editions held in South America. Mountain stages include hairpin turns, steep gradients, narrow ridgeline tracks, and surfaces that transition from rock to sand to clay within single kilometers.

The 2026 edition’s incorporation of stages through Al-Bahah and Aseer introduced mountain terrain of a character not previously seen in the Saudi Dakar. The terraced agricultural valleys, subtropical vegetation, and cooler temperatures of the southwest contrasted dramatically with the arid desert landscapes of previous editions, demonstrating that Saudi Arabia’s geographic diversity extends well beyond the sandy stereotype.

Coastal Plains

The Red Sea coastal plain, featuring in editions that start or finish in Jeddah or Yanbu, provides flat, fast terrain with a surface composition that varies between compacted sand, salt flat, and coral-derived gravel. The humidity levels near the coast differ significantly from the interior, affecting engine performance, tire behavior, and crew comfort.

Sabkha (Salt Flats)

Areas of evaporated lake beds and salt crusts — known as sabkha — present a deceptively dangerous surface type. The hard crust may support vehicle weight in dry conditions but can collapse into soft, wet substrate when broken, trapping vehicles in seconds. Competitors must identify sabkha from visual cues and either avoid them entirely or cross at speed before the surface breaks — a judgment call that has caught out even the most experienced Dakar veterans.

Agricultural and Semi-Urban Terrain

The stages near Saudi Arabia’s agricultural regions — particularly in the southwest and around Riyadh — include terrain that has been modified by farming activity: irrigation channels, field boundaries, palm groves, and access tracks that create navigation challenges distinct from open desert. These stages require heightened awareness of civilian activity and infrastructure that is absent from the deep desert sections.

Navigation: The Dakar’s Ultimate Challenge

Navigation is the single most important skill in Dakar competition, distinguishing rally raid from every other form of motorsport. Competitors are provided with a roadbook — a scrolling paper or digital document containing symbolic directions, waypoint distances, and heading instructions — that they must follow across terrain that offers few or no visual references. The roadbook is supplemented by GPS waypoints that must be validated at specific locations, ensuring that competitors follow the intended route.

The navigation challenge in Saudi Arabia is particularly severe because of the terrain’s visual monotony in certain regions. In the dune fields of the Empty Quarter or the gravel plains of the interior, the landscape can appear identical in every direction for hundreds of kilometers. A navigation error of even a few degrees can result in a competitor driving tens of kilometers off course before realizing the mistake, losing hours of competitive time.

The roadbook is distributed to competitors only hours before each stage, preventing advance reconnaissance and ensuring that every stage is genuinely navigated in real time. The co-driver (in car categories) or the solo rider (in motorcycle categories) must read the roadbook, calculate distances, match terrain features to the symbolic representations in the document, and provide course corrections — all while traveling at speeds that can exceed 150 km/h over rough terrain.

The introduction of electronic roadbooks — digital tablets replacing the traditional paper scrolls — has modernized the navigation process but has not fundamentally simplified it. The information displayed on the tablet must still be interpreted by the human navigator, and the consequences of misinterpretation remain the same: lost time, wasted fuel, mechanical stress from unplanned terrain encounters, and the psychological burden of uncertainty about one’s position.

Stage Types and Strategic Implications

ASO structures each Dakar edition to include a mix of stage types that test different competitive strengths. A typical edition includes three or four primary stage categories.

Speed stages are run on relatively flat, fast terrain — gravel plains or compacted sand — where average speeds exceed 100 km/h and the competitive advantage goes to teams with the most powerful and aerodynamically efficient vehicles. These stages reward mechanical reliability and driver endurance over multiple hours of sustained high-speed driving.

Technical stages feature complex terrain — dunes, wadis, mountain passes, or harrat — where navigation precision and car control determine the results. Speeds are lower, but the intensity of concentration required is higher, and the consequences of errors are more severe. These stages often produce the largest time gaps between competitors and the most dramatic position changes in the overall classification.

Marathon stages span two consecutive days, with competitors prohibited from receiving outside assistance overnight. The vehicles that finish the first marathon stage must start the second in the condition they arrived, meaning that any damage sustained during the first day must be repaired by the crew using only the tools and parts carried in the car. Marathon stages test self-sufficiency and reward teams that have built reliable machines and trained their crews in field repair techniques.

Super stages or spectator stages are shorter, more concentrated stages designed to provide television-friendly action in locations accessible to spectators. These stages typically feature more compact terrain with defined viewing points, allowing camera crews to capture close-quarters racing action that the wide-open desert stages cannot provide, as detailed in the AlUla desert X-Prix.

Seven Years of Route Evolution

The seven Saudi editions have progressively expanded the geographic footprint of the Dakar across the Kingdom. The 2020 route used a relatively conservative western corridor from Jeddah to Al-Qiddiya. The 2021 edition extended the range from Jeddah to Jeddah through 10 towns. By 2022, the route ventured further north with a Ha’il start. The 2023 edition pushed into the Empty Quarter. The 2024 edition explored the AlUla-to-Yanbu corridor. The 2025 edition traversed the Kingdom diagonally from Bisha in the southwest to Shubaytah in the Empty Quarter. The 2026 edition incorporated the previously unexplored Al-Bahah, Aseer, and Jizan regions.

This progressive geographic expansion has served multiple objectives. Competitively, it ensures that returning competitors face genuinely new terrain challenges each year. Touristically, it showcases different regions of the Kingdom to the global broadcast audience. Logistically, it distributes the economic impact of the event across multiple communities and regions. And strategically, it demonstrates the Kingdom’s willingness to open previously remote areas to international scrutiny and visitation.

The route evolution also reflects ASO’s growing understanding of Saudi terrain. The organizers’ local knowledge has deepened with each edition, enabling them to identify more challenging, more visually dramatic, and more logistically practical stage options than were available during the exploratory 2020 edition. The partnership between ASO’s international route design expertise and the Saudi government’s geographical and logistical resources has produced routes that many competitors consider among the best in the Dakar’s forty-eight-year history.

Future Route Possibilities

With three editions remaining on the current hosting agreement (2027-2029), significant geographic territory remains unexplored by the Dakar. The northeastern deserts near the Iraqi and Kuwaiti borders, the Arabian Gulf coastal regions, the Nafud Desert in the north, and the remote interior plateaus all offer terrain types and competitive challenges that have not yet been utilized.

The incorporation of the Empty Quarter as both a route feature and a stage destination has been one of the Saudi era’s defining achievements, and the continued use of this extraordinary landscape — the world’s largest sand desert — in future editions appears likely. The technical and logistical challenges of racing in the Empty Quarter are immense, but the visual spectacle and competitive drama they produce are unmatched in rally raid.

Whether future editions will push into even more extreme terrain — including the possibility of stages requiring overnight desert camping or multi-day marathon sections through entirely uninhabited regions — remains to be seen. The Dakar’s ongoing evolution demands that each edition offers something new, and Saudi Arabia’s geographic scale and diversity ensure that the organizers have ample material to work with.

The 2026 Route — Yanbu to Yanbu via the Southwest

The 2026 Dakar Rally, the seventh Saudi edition, introduced a route that broke new ground in multiple respects. Starting and finishing in Yanbu, the route incorporated stages through Al-Bahah, Aseer, and Jizan — regions in the southwest that had not previously featured in the Saudi Dakar. This geographic expansion revealed terrain types entirely new to the event’s Saudi repertoire: the terraced agricultural landscapes of Aseer, the tropical coastal zones near Jizan, and the mountain roads of Al-Bahah province.

The 2026 edition attracted 812 competitors from 69 nationalities, the largest entry in the Saudi era. The route’s total distance exceeded 8,500 kilometres, with timed special stages totalling approximately 5,000 kilometres. The incorporation of southwest regions served Vision 2030’s objective of distributing economic impact beyond the traditionally featured central and western regions, bringing international media attention and direct economic activity to areas of the Kingdom that rarely appear in global coverage.

The route design team’s progressive reveal of Saudi Arabia’s geographic diversity across seven editions has transformed international perceptions of the Kingdom’s landscape. The contrast between the towering dunes of the Empty Quarter, the volcanic harrat fields of the central plateau, the mountain passes of the southwest, and the Red Sea coastal plains has demonstrated a terrain diversity that few outsiders associated with Saudi Arabia before the Dakar’s arrival.

Infrastructure Legacy and Tourism Development

Each Dakar route leaves an infrastructure legacy that serves the host regions long after the rally departs. Road improvements made to support the convoy of 3,000 personnel and hundreds of vehicles remain available for local use. Communications infrastructure installed for bivouac operations provides lasting connectivity in areas where mobile coverage was previously limited or non-existent.

The tourism development potential of the Dakar route is exemplified by AlUla, which leveraged its Dakar exposure to build a broader tourism proposition centred on its Nabataean heritage at Hegra (Madain Saleh). The Royal Commission for AlUla’s tourism development strategy has benefited directly from the international awareness generated by the Dakar’s passage through the region, converting media exposure into actual visitation and investment.

Future route design will need to balance competitive demands with tourism development objectives, ensuring that each edition both tests competitors to their limits and showcases regions of Saudi Arabia with tourism development potential. The three remaining editions on the current hosting agreement (2027-2029) provide opportunities to explore the northeastern deserts, the Arabian Gulf coast, and the Nafud Desert — regions that could benefit from the same Dakar-catalysed tourism development that AlUla has experienced.

For official route information, see the Dakar Rally official website and the Saudi Tourism Authority’s destination guides.