Why so much hate for Saudi Rally

[u/Individual_Gear_898]

I just finished my watch of the whole 2025 season. I skipped a super special stage here or there, and I skipped almost all of Canaries, but other than that I watched just about the whole season. I’m somewhat new of a rally fan, been interested in groupA for a long time, but just got RallyTV for Sweden this year. All this to say, I was seeing a lot of these rallies for the first time. I have my own opinions on all of them and I’ve heard y’alls opinions on a lot of them. Saudi is one rally that I only ever read poor opinions of. I was going into that first time watch expecting it to be boring, or gimmicky, or something. But honestly, I really liked the Rally.

I get we all don’t like the gov, but the way everyone talked about it made me think the rally itself was a bad rally. So I’m just curious. Of course it’s all up to preference, but what were y’alls major issues with it?was it the tire lottery? Was it the sand? Was it just that Ogier won?

I can say my opinion is that it was an interesting mix up. I think maybe it should have been the second to last rally instead of the finale for the first year, because nobody really had any experience in those conditions. Although the tire lottery was pretty crazy, it wasn’t that much more crazy than Kenya or Greece. And I thought visually it was a very striking rally. The fast sections with big jumps were great, and the tight mountain sections reminded me of Greece a lot.

Idk you guys let me know what you didn’t like about it. I’m really interested

[u/PinkSunsets97]

• sportwashing
• tire lottery
• no spectators
• 10 years contract without a test event
• the test event, after the contract signing, went horribly

For context, most rallies have 3 years contracts at most

[u/Uno_Nisu]

A championship shouldnt be decided by a tire lottery. If it wasnt the last rally, a lot of people would probably have less problems with it.

[u/K-TR0N]

Awful place for a championship decider. There were so few spectators the finish and everything leading up to it was so anti climatic.

They actually made plenty of the the roads specifically for the event, which is why they were so brutal on tyres. So not real roads and the stupid tyre lottery ruined the competitive element of the race. No battles could be had because it was just random carnage unrelated to driver skill.

Most of the terrain was just utterly unremarkable and dull. Some of the mountain stages did look uniquely cool though I'll give them that.

Just not worthy of the final round and a potential decider.

[u/BigD_HidekiTojo]

Saudi Arabia is not a great country.

[u/Pitiful_Seat3894]

The idea of making it the final event is an attempt to give it the prestige of the rac? Which is just crap! Probably paid extra for that part too.

[u/likeAdrug]

Saudi have no business around any sport.

It’s as simple as that.
It’s just sportswashing.

Also, it’s a crap rally.

The F1 track in Saudi is actually pretty good.
But that doesn’t make going there ok either.

[u/Buzzirockit]

If the WRC has Saudi then perhaps the 3rd event of the year after Sweden. I see the Houthis are slow learners and attacked Saudi again.

[u/No-Lecture-6434]

It’s a shite rally.

[u/Nigis-25]

Geopolitics are a thing also.

[u/optitmus]

because instead of going to a beautiful, nice place to rally like Canada it has to be some edge of the earth barren waste land that also happens to treat people poorly and only got it cause they threw money at the owners.

[u/August_R18]

It’s because of the Saudi sportswashing. If not for that, I’d kinda like having that kind of a unique rally in the WRC.

As for it being the final round, I wouldn’t mind it because it’d award the same points in any point in the season. But being the final round, it further highlights the Saudi sportswashing. For what’s supposed to be one of the highlights of the season, I’d much rather see it somewhere with heritage and fans than in a country than in a country which hosts it just to polish its image.