‘Who could have imagined it?’: David Richards on the Middle East’s motorsport transformation

RIYADH: Few figures have witnessed the evolution of motorsport in the Middle East as closely as David Richards.

The former World Rally Championship-winning co-driver and founder of Prodrive says the region’s rise from hosting modest desert rallies to staging some of the world’s biggest motorsport events has been one of the defining transformations of his career.

Speaking exclusively to Arab News as Prodrive marks its 50th anniversary, Richards reflected on his first visit to the Gulf half a century ago, his long-standing ties with Saudi Arabia and its neighbors, and the remarkable journey that has turned the region into a global motorsport destination.

Richards’ connection with the region dates back to the mid-1970s, when he organized the inaugural Kuwait Rally. Looking back, he sees the event not only as the beginning of his own long relationship with the Gulf but also as part of the foundations for the region’s organized motorsport landscape. Over the following decades, countries including Qatar, Bahrain, Oman, and the UAE developed structured rally programs, national motorsport federations, and world-class racing venues, helping establish the Middle East as a major player on the international calendar.

“I suppose we start 50 years ago, when I got an invitation from Rothmans, the sponsors of the first Kuwait Rally, to go out to Kuwait and organize the rally for them,” Richards recalled.

With only a few weeks’ notice, he traveled to Kuwait to help organize the event. Its success led to further invitations across the Gulf, taking him to Qatar, Bahrain, the UAE, and Oman, as rallying steadily gained momentum throughout the region.

“So, I spent quite a lot of time out in the Middle East in those early days,” he