Sardinia will host the final round of the 2026 WRC Rally World Championship

The Rally Italia Sardegna will become the final round of the 2026 World Rally Championship after the FIA and WRC Promoter removed Saudi Arabia from the calendar without replacing the date with another event. The title decider between Elfyn Evans, Sami Pajari, and Oliver Solberg will be settled between October 1 and 4 on the Sardinian gravel.

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The withdrawal comes in response to the impossibility of guaranteeing with sufficient advance notice the transport of teams, cars, and equipment to Jeddah for the scheduled date of November 12 to 15. Toyota and Hyundai had notified the federation that their internal travel policies prevented part of their personnel from traveling to the Middle East under the current conditions in the region, an obstacle that compounded the difficulties of confirming stable air and sea routes.

The Saudi Arabian Automobile and Motorcycle Federation insisted that the country maintained the capacity and willingness to host the event, and the FIA acknowledged that work in its statement, though in the end the logistical risk weighed more heavily than the possibility of sustaining the rally within the world championship.

In the weeks leading up to the decision, the possibility of adding a fourteenth round to avoid reducing the number of races was discussed, and Spain was even mentioned as an alternative due to the infrastructure left by the former Rally Catalunya, last contested in the WRC in 2022 with a victory by Sébastien Ogier. The federation and the promoter chose to close the season with thirteen rounds instead of the original fourteen.

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The title decider will now be concentrated at Sardinia, where Evans arrives with 230 points compared to 213 for Pajari and 209 for Solberg after the race in Chile, with a maximum of 35 points available under the current scoring system. The elimination of Saudi Arabia takes away one full opportunity for the three drivers to score and forces Pajari and Solberg to close the gap in a single round instead of two.

Saudi Arabia does not disappear from the international motorsport map, however. The rally will be run as planned between November 12 and 15, but it will become part of the Middle East Championship instead of the World Championship, and both the FIA and the promoter left the door open for the country to return to the WRC in 2027, when they hope conditions will allow sustaining the full logistical operation required for a season finale.

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The WRC joins other championships that had to redesign their seasons due to the situation in the Middle East during 2026. The WEC canceled its two rounds in Qatar and Bahrain and replaced them with races at Barcelona on October 18 and Monza between November 6 and 8, after the organization determined it needed more time to move cargo and personnel between continents. Formula 1 removed the Bahrain and Saudi Arabian Grands Prix from its calendar in March without replacing them at the time, and the Bahrain round was eventually moved to Sepang, Malaysia, keeping the event's original name. MotoGP moved its Qatar Grand Prix from April to November, pushing the season finale to November 29, and Formula E for now maintains its Jeddah race in December, though it acknowledges it is working on a backup plan.

Sardinia will therefore arrive with the full weight of the championship on a gravel surface that punishes both cars and drivers, with Evans forced to manage a lead of just 17 points over Pajari in the year's final opportunity to settle the WRC drivers' and co-drivers' titles.