The World Rally-Raid Championship will return to the Iberian Peninsula and Europe as a whole with the BP Ultimate Rally Raid on 2–7 April. All but one of the stages will take place in Portugal, owing to the event mainly being organised by the Automóvel Club de Portugal, though a leg will be held in neighbouring Spain.
“It is an honour to host the BP Ultimate Rally Raid Portugal,” said ACP president Carlos Barbosa. “We have unique conditions for practicing cross-country rally and guarantee the excellent organisation of ACP on a world organisation. Welcome to Portugal!”
While a specific route and schedule will be revealed closer to April, it is expected to begin along the Atlantic coast in Alentejo. The rally then heads north to Ribatejo, the centralmost province of Portugal. For the penultimate day, the rally crosses into Spain into Extremadura before going back to Portugal on the final leg. Each region offers differing types of racing such as Alentejo’s beaches, forests of Ribatejo, and Extremadura’s rocky paths.
Grândola, located just south of the Protuguese capital of Lisbon in Setúbal District, will serve as the race bivouac.
Revealed in June, the BP Ultimate Rally Raid marks just the W2RC’s second time racing in Europe after the Andalucía Rally in southern Spain concluded the inaugural season in 2022. Both countries have rich cross-country rally histories with among the top domestic championships for the discipline. Extremadura currently hosts the FIA European Baja Cup’s season-opening Baja TT Dehesa Extremadura, while both countries are represented on both the European and World Baja Cup calendars; the latter’s Baja Portalegre 500 has raced through Alentejo and Ribatejo.
“The race, from what I heard, is going be a lot of sand, not like Dakar of course, but sandy tracks,” W2RC and Portuguese Cross-County Championship driver João Ferreira told The Checkered Flag in October. “It will be super fun, super fast as well and will be a pleasure to see all the World Championship drivers in our own country and in Spain. I think the drivers will enjoy the race.”
The race will be the third round of the 2024 W2RC, which begins 5 January with the Dakar Rally.
