What Is Rally Jameel?

Back on the 26th September 2017, King Salman Al Saud of Saudi Arabia issued a statement that recognized a woman’s right to drive cars.

It was a milestone moment that was a very long time in the making and from that point onwards, a plethora of new opportunities for women in Saudi Arabia and the wider region have opened up, injecting a breath of fresh air into the motorsport world.

One of the best and most fascinating of these opportunities was the creation of Rally Jameel.

Rally Jameel is the first off-road navigation rally for women in Saudi Arabia, the surrounding area and beyond. Unlike most rallies, speed is not the most important factor at play here – and neither is experience. This is an event designed to test those but more importantly, to give individuals who never had the chance – or never thought they’d be able to – to try their hand at racing.

Motorsport is famous for being a sport where getting seat time to practise can be very difficult to come by. Rally Jameel helps to counter this, welcoming women from all around the globe of all experience levels (including none at all) to find out for themselves what offroad racing is all about and if it’s something they’d be interested in.

For some, it’s nothing more than that. For others, it’s proven to be the chance they needed to realise a dream that they didn’t know they had or dared not to believe that it could become a reality – and for others, as mentioned, it’s just another valuable way to get more seat time to hone their skills to make them sharper for their next competitive event.

How Does It Work?

Teams of two women use state of the art navigation equipment as well as a digital road book to compete on a predefined route in the picturesque deserts of Saudi Arabia. They use normal off-road cars and have to find their way through hidden Waypoints in order to collect points over the course of the rally. The team that accumulates the most points by the end wins the Rally. It’s as simple as that.

The route each day varies from 300 km to 500 km and is kept secret until the night before each stage, adding an extra layer of difficulty to the competition for all of those taking part.

2024 saw the event being held for the third time and this year, it was even bigger than the previous two editions – an encouraging sign that this isn’t just a niche one off marketing event, it’s something that is naturally growing and garnering attention more and more in the local region, as well as globally.

“We are deeply encouraged by the growing interest from participants, particularly on an international scale, with a remarkable increase in global participation from 38 countries, compared to 15 in the inaugural edition of the rally.” – Munir Khoja, Managing Director, Abdul Latif Jameel Motors

This year, Polish driver Ewelina Chlebowksa and her German Co-Driver Hanna Riehle, racing for Team Sandstorm Express, won the overall event for the second time in a row. Behind them were Maha Al Hamali from Saudi Arabia and her American Co-Driver, Eleanor Coker who competed for Team Obiyya while in third place were British Racing Driver and Extreme E veteran Catie Munnings along with her Swedish Co-Driver Catalina Floberg, racing for Team Altawkilat.

Six different nationalities across the three teams that made it onto the podium has to put a smile of satisfaction on your face and proves that what Rally Jamell set out to do is working. So while it’s great that this event is having so much success (a fourth edition is on the cards for next year), it’s also something that would be awesome to see replicated elsewhere, such as in Africa and South America.

At a time where grassroots motorsport is proving to be more and more vital, especially in helping to level the playing field when it comes to inclusion, more events like this – as well as them getting the deserved media coverage, Rally Jameel is helping to pave the way for the future where racing gets down to its purest form – when gender doesn’t matter and it’s all about the drivers vs the track, the clock and each other.

So if you didn’t know about Rally Jameel, now you do.

But that’s not all! Over the next few weeks, we’ve got interviews coming out with some of the drivers who competed in this year’s rally. There’s a great variety amongst them and each of them has a unique story to tell about their experience in the desert.

It’s a showcase of some of the breadth of competitors that this race has attracted from around the world and perfectly demonstrates that if you’re reading this and thinking of competing next year but are not sure if you have what it takes – then let this reassure you that you absolutely do.