Who is Dakar winner and Saudi billionaire Yazeed Al-Rajhi?

The Dakar Rally has been held in several countries since its inaugural edition in 1979, but no driver had managed to lift the Touareg trophy on home soil until Yazeed Al-Rajhi this year.

The Saudi driver won an atypical 2025 event in which a number of favourites fell by the wayside early on, with Carlos Sainz Sr and Sebastien Loeb being the most high-profile departures.

Emerging winner in the Ultimate class in front of his home crowd is easily the biggest achievement in the sporting career of Al-Rajhi, who is one of the country’s richest persons.

His passion for motorsport developed a long time ago, having started competing in local rallies in the Middle East in 2007. In 2014 he made the leap to the international level in rallying, leaving aside more popular sports including football. 

Since his debut in 2015, when he recorded one stage win, Al-Rajhi has racked up 11 appearances in the Dakar.

His previous best result was third in 2022, curiously one of the years in which he never topped an individual stage. Last year, he was leading the overall standings until his car went airborne in a spectacular accident in the new 48-hour stage.

Outside of motor racing, Al-Rajhi is also a great businessman, and every week he visits one of his various companies, be it coffee shops where he holds half the shares, the family-run Al-Rajhi Bank, the Berain water company that sponsors Dakar, or the steel business that accounts for 80% of the steel trade in Saudi Arabia.

For this reason, he takes advantage of any time he can get in Dakar to answer at least 20 emails a day, with his co-driver Timo Gottschalk helping him manage the 25,000 people employed by him.

Al-Rajhi found out that money wasn’t everything when it came to winning. Despite having amassed a huge fortune, he spends his days going to the office in the morning – as long as he’s not in his Toyota Hilux entered by the customer Overdrive Racing team.

“We have made a lot of records today: the first Saudi driver to win and also in the last twenty-five years no private team beat a factory team but we did it this time,” he told reporters including Motorsport.com.

“Also, it’s the first time there is a winner on the Dakar from the same country in which it is raced, with a Saudi guy winning a Saudi Dakar.

“I’ve been waiting for this day for a long time, and for sure. I think the next time will not be easy for other Saudi drivers who want to win the Dakar Rally. I needed a lot of time to do it, we need a lot of time together to do it, it’s not easy.

“And I think we will keep this record for a long time. It’s like when Saudi Arabia beat Argentina in the World Cup.”

#201 Overdrive Racing Toyota: Yazeed Al Rajhi

Photo by: A.S.O.

Thanks to his wealth, Al-Rajhi is thinking about the future of Saudi motorsport, and has a challenge for young hopefuls who want to try their luck in the local desert. Some very juicy prizes of up to 2.5 million euros are offered, just for finishing on the podium, although the ultimate goal is for better generations to come along and succeed him in winning Dakar.

However, to inspire the next generation of rally drivers, he had to win Dakar first. To finally achieve that target this year, he learned from his mistakes and stopped going all-out all the time.

He realised that he needed to race with the experience he has gained in the last 10 years and push to 90 per cent, instead of giving his all and suffering an accident like in 2024.

The Saudi driver has gained a very special follower in the form of Sainz Sr, who messages him frequently to ask how he is doing. The two regularly engage in friendly chats, with the four-time Dakar winner always encouraging him to call should he need any advice.

“Carlos helped me win,” he said.

“Yesterday I said to him, ‘What do you think? Can I call you?’ And then he called me, and he helped me a lot. I said I wanted to be a winner, like him.”

And the next day, he did follow in the footsteps of 2024 winner Sainz to clinch Dakar for the first time.