South Africa added to 2025 World Rally-Raid Championship

South Africa’s bid for a World Rally-Raid Championship date has succeeded as it will host the third round of the 2025 calendar.

The South African Safari Rally, not to be confused with the World Rally Championship event in Kenya, is scheduled for 18–24 May. It marks the halfway point of the season, with multiple-month breaks sandwiching it and the rest of the slate.

Home to one of the more prominent national cross-country rally series, South Africa “auditioned” for a W2RC round with the TGRSA Safari 1000 in June. Held in Limpopo as the only event on the South African Rally-Raid Championship longer than two days, the race was the spiritual successor to the TGR 1000 Desert Race in nearby Botswana. Limpopo and the nearby North West province will also host the Safari Rally, with headquarters at Sun City Resort by the Pilanesberg National Park.

In a sense, the Safari Rally splits the five-race 2025 schedule in half. The first two rounds are in the Middle East, the Dakar Rally in Saudi Arabia and the Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge, and scheduled just a month apart in January and February. A two-month pause follows before heading to South Africa.

Once the Safari Rally is out of the way, the championship goes dormant for another four months before resuming in September with the BP Ultimate Rally-Raid in Portugal. Two weeks after that, everyone crosses the Strait of Gibraltar into Morocco for the season-ending Rallye du Maroc.

All five races are in Afro-Eurasia as the Safari Rally replaces replaces Argentina’s Desafío Ruta 40, the only round in the Americas and one that some teams skip despite championship implications because they cannot afford to move their equipment across the Atlantic. However, while cutting down on transport costs was a factor, organisers stressed America is still in their future plans.

“The absence of Argentina from the 2025 calendar doesn’t mean this race no longer has a place in the W2RC,” began Amaury Sport Organisation head David Castéra. “In fact, what we want is to rotate these events. That’s what we’ll start doing next season.”

The Dakar Rally, the crown jewel of the W2RC and its opener since the inaugural season in 2022, will stay in Saudi Arabia for a sixth year. Abu Dhabi will exclusively take place in February as opposed to how the 2023 and 2024 editions started that month then concluded in March.

The BP Ultimate Rally-Raid is the only multi-country event as it is primarily in Portugal but crosses over into Spain for a stage. It was created for the 2024 season, marking the W2RC’s return to the European continent after the 2022 Andalucía Rally.

Morocco doubles as both the season finale and a dress rehearsal for the next year’s Dakar. The Rallye du Maroc remains the last round as it has been since 2023.

2025 World Rally-Raid Championship schedule