South Africa bids for first African F1 grand prix in 30 years

MIDRAND (South Africa), Feb 28 — Three decades after Formula One engines last roared on African tarmac, South Africa is mounting a bid to organise a new Grand Prix and bring the world championship back to the continent.

Competition to host the high-octane spectacle is between two tracks: a street circuit in Cape Town and the less picturesque but historic Kyalami race track outside Johannesburg.

A committee set up by sports minister Gayton McKenzie will choose the winning bid in the third quarter of the year, committee member Mlimandlela Ndamase told AFP.

McKenzie is confident about South Africa’s chances.

“The Grand Prix is definitely coming in 2027, no doubt about that,” he said early Feb.

“Whether it is Cape Town or Joburg, we do not care as long as the Grand Prix is coming to South Africa.”

The challenging Kyalami circuit — which zigzags about 30 kilometres (20 miles) outside Johannesburg and where the track is painted with a huge, colourful South African flag — once hosted nail-biting races and legendary drivers.

But the last grand prix on African soil was held in 1993, the year before South Africa’s first democratic elections that ended apartheid. It was won by Alain Prost in a Williams.

Post-apartheid return?

South Africa’s bid to host F1 can count on the support of seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton, who has long advocated for an African Grand Prix.

“We can’t be adding races in other locations and continuing to ignore Africa,” Hamilton said last Aug.

Under the leadership of US conglomerate Liberty Media, which bought the Formula One Group in 2017, the sport wants to “go to every continent”, said expert Samuel Tickell, of the University of Munster in Germany.

Returning to South Africa would be “something very important for Formula 1, which has not raced there since the end of the apartheid era,” he told AFP.

The sport had lived some “historic moments” in the country, Tickell said, including a threatened strike led by Niki Lauda in 1982 against a racing “super-licence” restricting drivers’ contractual freedom.

South Africa also boasts the continent’s only world champion, Ferrari’s Jody Scheckter in 1979.

Creating a race on the continent would not require excluding other venues as the F1 calendar is always expanding. The upcoming season counts seven more Grand Prix than in 2009, for example.

Sky-high organisational costs and hosting fees would not be an obstacle either, said Simon Chadwick, professor of sport and geopolitical economics at Skema Business School in Paris.

“Even if races are not commercially viable, to some of the countries and their backers, that won’t matter because it’s a strategic payoff,” he said.

China, for instance, has “long been building sports infrastructure for African countries in return for access to their natural resources,” he said.

Johannesburg’s Kyalami race track is certified as Grade 2, just a level below that needed for an F1 race, and it will require some work to host an event.

Rwanda ‘pole position’

An alternative circuit vying to hold the prestigious race would snake through the streets of Cape Town, recently ranked “best city in the world” by Time Out magazine.

Winding its way around the stadium built for the 2010 men’s football World Cup in the shadow of the emblematic Lion’s Head mountain overlooking the ocean, the route has already hosted a Formula E race in 2023.

An F1 street circuit in the city would “outclass Monaco,” said Cape Town Grand Prix CEO Igshaan Amlay.

Yet the real battle may be less between the two rival cities than against Rwanda, whose President Paul Kagame was at the Singapore Grand Prix in Sept to meet the sport’s governing body, the FIA, and F1 owners Liberty Media, Chadwick said.

The central African country already sponsors Arsenal and Paris Saint-Germain football giants and is a partner of the NBA.

“Rwanda is in pole position,” Chadwick said.

Morocco has also long had ambitions of hosting an F1 race.

Still, nothing prevents two GPs being held on the continent, with the South African sports minister asking: “Why is it that when it comes to Africa, we are treated like we can only get one?”

Rwanda’s F1 bid could, though, be hampered by its involvement in the conflict in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. Already, calls are mounting to withdraw the cycling Road World Championships, planned in Kigali in Sept. — AFP