Saudi Arabia’s first-ever women’s only rally-raid event, Rally Jameel, will take place in the country on March 17-19.
Sanctioned by the Saudi Automobile & Motorcycle Federation (SAMF) with additional support from FIA Women in Motorsport, the three-day event will begin from the city of Hail and end in Saudi Arabia’s capital city Riyadh.
Each competing team will feature two female drivers in either road-legal 4×4 vehicles or anything with all-wheel-drive. Because it’s a navigational event rather than a speed test, rollcages aren’t mandated.
The route for each day will be provided the night before each leg, while further announcements will be made on March 8; International Women’s Day.
It’s a seismic announcement for Saudi Arabian motorsport as women have only been permitted to drive on public roads since September 2017.
But Saudi Arabia has grown on the motorsport landscape since Jeddah was added to the Formula E calendar in 2018. Formula 1 raced there in 2021, the Dakar Rally was held in Saudi from 2020 – and is currently ongoing in 2022 – while the very first round of Extreme E was also held in the country last year.
The first round of XE’s second season will also kickstart in Saudi, based in the growing city of Neom next month.
