Toyota and Hyundai blocked their staff from the Middle East, and F1 teams could face the same problem

The two WRC manufacturers sent a joint letter to the FIA from sporting directors Kaj Lindström (Toyota) and Andrew Wheatley (Hyundai) outlining their position on the Jeddah-based event.

Toyota's statement left no room for interpretation: "TMC policy currently prohibits any travel to the Middle East," the Japanese manufacturer said.

Hyundai added: "There are some restrictions on business travel to the Middle East which are being monitored on a daily basis and are evolving constantly."

The FIA removed Rally Saudi Arabia from the 2026 World Rally Championship on 17 September.

What makes the WRC precedent directly relevant to Formula 1 is the scope of these bans. The two manufacturers have company-wide travel restrictions in place for certain locations in the Middle East, not just Saudi Arabia.

F1's 2026 grid includes Audi, Mercedes, Ferrari, Renault, Honda, Ford and General Motors, and Qatar and Abu Dhabi sit in the same region.

The retreat from the Gulf is already spreading across international motorsport. The WEC cancelled both its Qatar and Bahrain rounds in July, relocating them to Barcelona and Monza.

F1 itself lost the Bahrain and Saudi Arabian Grands Prix in April. In the WRC, the decision that mattered was taken in Toyota's and Hyundai's head offices, not at the FIA: once two of the three Rally1 manufacturers said their people would not fly, the governing body was left to sign a cancellation the teams had already made.

M-Sport Ford had been prepared to travel, but even that position shifted after the British Foreign Office updated its advice on September 16, days after missiles hit an Aramco facility at Yanbu, roughly 300 km from the rally base.

As GPblog has reported, F1 teams have already received private guarantees that they will not need to travel to Qatar and Abu Dhabi, though for some teams this was more of an issue than for others.

Cadillac and Haas' American identity was flagged as a particular risk, with insuring an American outfit for the region described as impossible while the US government advises against non-essential travel. Had those guarantees not been given, some teams would have seriously considered skipping the trip.

What nobody has answered publicly is whether any of F1's seven manufacturer-linked teams have formally communicated their corporate travel restrictions to the FIA in the way Toyota and Hyundai did in rallying.

If they have, the WRC has already demonstrated what follows. If they have not, it may simply be because the decision has already been made behind closed doors, and the manufacturers never needed to send the letter.