Burning rubber with the Middle East’s women rally racers

In a single stage of the Dakar Rally, drivers can cover over 500 miles. Typically, there are around 12 stages, raced over 15 days, and competitors are given road maps just minutes before setting off across the Sahara Desert over open sand dunes, fragrant camel grass and toothy rocks. It’s a feat of athleticism, stamina and focus, as much as driving skill.

In 2025, motorist Dania Akeel became the first Saudi woman to win a stage. It came just seven years after women in her home country were legally permitted to drive in 2018. In a sport where people of all genders race together as equals but just one-tenth of the competitors are women, across the Middle East and North Africa, female rally racers like Akeel have been riding out cultural taboos, challenging expectations about who gets to sit behind the wheel, and who gets to come first.

“Attitudes are changing,” says Iranian rally legend, Laleh Seddigh. ​“There is a new generation of women who are confident, ambitious, and unafraid to pursue untraditional careers and passions.” 

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This new generation includes 22-year old Joanna Hassoun, a rising star on Lebanon’s rally circuits, 27-year-old Jordanian racer, Farah Zakaria, and Nora Al Jassasi, who became the first and only Emariti female rally racer when she joined the scene in 2022. Teams as well, like Palestine’s Speed Sisters and Egypt’s Gazelle Rally Team established in 2009 and 2016, have helped to bolster the movement. But representation is still rare and women are often blazing trails on their own unaccompanied – Akeel remains one of a small few Arab women to have competed in the Dakar Rally, though the overall number of women in the competition has grown. 

Laleh Seddigh became a global racing icon in the early ​’00s – an impressive feat at a time when even fewer elite female motorists reigned than today, and where a local ayatollah had to issue a fatwa (legal ruling) that allowed women to compete in track races so she could compete.

Throughout her career, driving a souped-up Proton on urban race tracks and arid deserts, she competed directly against men. Coming first is not easy, in otherwise all-male speed and cross-country rally competitions. She remembers how competitors would line up their cars into impenetrable chains just so she couldn’t pass them. ​“They just can’t stand to see a woman doing what they’re doing,” she explains. 

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Their resentment became Seddigh’s motivation. ​“The favourite moment, my most favourite one, is when I’m jumping on the top part of the podium, and there is a male driver on the left and on the right side of me,” she says.

But beyond competition and proving a point, the real draw to the sport is the ever-continuing self-improvement. Akeel explains, ​“It’s not about danger and adrenaline and being badass. It’s about mastering a craft, which sometimes will challenge you to the point where you’re afraid, but you can overcome it with awareness and resistance, resilience and consistency, discipline and mastery.”

In an era where people don’t need to learn how to navigate the earth anymore, and cars offer assisted steering and cruise control, rally racing is a throwback to the basics of driving. ​“When you race cross country, you feel like you travelled back in time – you’re very present in the moment. You have to use your mind, your body, your skills to solve your problem, to achieve your goal, to reach the end. There is a physical finish you have to cross and reach,” she says. ​“We don’t experience that kind of challenge in today’s world. Our challenges are very much in the digital world.”

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Dominique Serra wanted women to have access to the sport, creating the women-only Rallye Aïcha des Gazelles in 1990 – a rally-raid held on the unpredictable umber grounds of the Moroccan Sahara. In most rallies, the co-driver, sitting in the passenger seat, navigates with pacenotes that prepare them for what lies ahead. In Rallye Aïcha des Gazelles, co-drivers rely on analogue navigation techniques – a roadbook, a compass and a topographical map – to help them cover the thousands of miles of desert. 

Serra says that in the 36 years her rally has run, women in rally racing have become more visible, legitimate and numerous, but the road ahead is long. ​“Significant challenges remain,” she says. ​“Access to funding, representation in decision-making positions, and sometimes persistent stereotypes. We must continue to create spaces where women can not only participate but also be fully recognised for their skills.”

While that participation and recognition is growing across the Middle East and North Africa, the realities facing drivers vary sharply from country to country. 

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In Seddigh’s Iran, the difficulties come from all angles. Decades of economic instability has made an already expensive sport even more pricey, while sanctions have made it impossible to import essential parts for cars. Now, the US-Israel joint war against the country has made the prospect of getting updated technology and tools even slimmer. 

But Seddigh is optimistic things will improve for the next generation. She’s training young female rally racers to grow their skills and get into international circuits, Akeel is also a mentor in #RACE4WOMEN – an initiative by F1 driver Sebastian Vettel to encourage more young women into the sport – though she contends that she ​“wants women to feel that they can do whatever they want”, whether that’s racing or not. By normalising women on the tracks and winning there too, she and other women racing drivers are creating impetus for more on the scene. 

“I believe the future is very promising and momentum is real,” Seddigh says. ​“Every woman who enters the sport today is helping make the path easier for the next generation.”

Roxana Diba is a freelance journalist. Follow her on Instagram.

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