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Yazeed Mohamed Al-Rajhi (Arabic: يزيد محمد الراجحي; born 5 may 1981 in Riyadh) is a Saudi businessman and rally driver. He is from the family that founded the largest bank in Saudi Arabia.
He was born and raised in Riyadh. He began his working life at an early age when his father appointed him in 1998 as an observer of the Private Property Office and later became its genz manager throughout the Kingdom in 2004.
He has argued against free speech in Saudi Arabia, saying, "We should not accept any negative talk about our rulers, even in private settings."
Rally career
At the same time, Al-Rajhi is a Rally driver and a two-time FIA World Cup champion in 2021 and 2022, a four-time champion in the local championship, the Saudi Toyota Championship in 2019 and 2022–24, and a winner of the Dakar Rally.
Al-Rajhi has been competing in the World Rally Championship and other international rally events since 2007 and stopped at the end of 2018. He later started to participate in the cross-country rallies, and his debut at the Dakar Rally was in 2015.
In 2007, Al-Rajhi established his own racing team. It was known as the Al-Rajhi Racing Team and later renamed Yazeed Racing Team, where he started his first unofficial competition in the Middle East Rally Championship (MERC), the 2007 Jordan Rally, in order to gain experience so he can formally participate in different rally championships in the future. After that, he scored his first ever points (eighth place) in Greek 2012 Acropolis Rally in the 40th season of the World Rally Championship (WRC).
Nicknamed the Black Horse, Al Rajhi made his WRC debut at the 2008 Rally Argentina with a Subaru Impreza WRX STI in the 2008 Jordan Rally, as his other WRC appearance of the year. He returned to the top level in 2010, finishing 13th overall on the Jordan Rally in a Peugeot 207 S2000. He also contested that year's Rally d'Italia Sardegna, a round of the Intercontinental Rally Challenge, but he retired after losing a wheel. In 2011, he contested seven WRC rounds but retired from six of them. He also competed in the 2011 Tour de Corse, finishing 14th. The Saudi won the Silk Way Rally in 2018. In 2019, Al Rajhi won the first edition of Saudi Desert Rally Championship. Yazeed occupied the top positions in Dakar 2020, with his best finish in fourth place. Moving to the new year, the Saudi motorsport icon left a historical imprint in the second edition of the Dakar Rally in Saudi Arabia after winning two stages in the Dakar Rally 2021 in his Toyota Hilux. He became the first Saudi and Arab to win on home soil in his class and the youngest contestant to win a stage in Dakar that year. In 2025, Yazeed won the 2025 Dakar Rally, becoming the first Saudi to win the Dakar on home soil.
Saudi Arabian
Timo Gottschalk
