{"id":108629,"date":"2025-09-02T07:38:13","date_gmt":"2025-09-02T07:38:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/108629\/"},"modified":"2025-09-02T07:38:13","modified_gmt":"2025-09-02T07:38:13","slug":"formula-one-south-africa-bids-to-return-f1-to-continent-where-when-how-motorsports-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/108629\/","title":{"rendered":"Formula One: South Africa bids to return F1 to continent \u2013 where, when, how | Motorsports News"},"content":{"rendered":"

Published On 14 Mar 202514 Mar 2025<\/p>\n

More than 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.<\/p>\n

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 of Johannesburg.<\/p>\n

Al Jazeera looks at the bid to bring motorsport\u2019s premier event back to Africa.<\/p>\n

How is the proposed track being decided?<\/p>\n

A committee set up by South African sports minister Gayton McKenzie will choose the winning bid in the third quarter of the year, committee member Mlimandlela Ndamase has told the AFP news agency.<\/p>\n

McKenzie is confident about South Africa\u2019s chances. \u201cThe Grand Prix is definitely coming in 2027, no doubt about that,\u201d he said in early February.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhether it is Cape Town or Joburg, we do not care as long as the Grand Prix is coming to South Africa.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"BritonFormer world champion Nigel Mansell, of the United Kingdom, leads the Grand Prix Masters race ahead of Brazil\u2019s Emerson Fittipaldi at the Kyalami circuit near Johannesburg in 2005 [Juda Ngwenya\/Reuters]<\/p>\n

The challenging Kyalami circuit \u2013 which zigzags about 30 kilometres (20 miles) outside Johannesburg and where the track is painted with a huge, colourful South African flag \u2013 once hosted nail-biting races and legendary drivers.<\/p>\n

When did F1 last race in Africa?<\/p>\n

The last Grand Prix on African soil was held in 1993, a year before South Africa\u2019s first democratic elections that ended apartheid. It was won by Frenchman Alain Prost in a Williams.<\/p>\n

What has the reaction been to South Africa\u2019s F1 bid?<\/p>\n

South Africa\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe can\u2019t be adding races in other locations and continuing to ignore Africa,\u201d Hamilton said last August.<\/p>\n

Under the leadership of US conglomerate Liberty Media, which bought the Formula One Group in 2017, the sport wants to \u201cgo to every continent\u201d, said expert Samuel Tickell, of the University of Munster in Germany.<\/p>\n

Returning to South Africa would be \u201csomething very important for Formula One, which has not raced there since the end of the apartheid era,\u201d he told AFP.<\/p>\n

\"DavidDavid Coulthard, a former Formula One driver, drives the Red Bull RB7 through the streets of the Sandton CBD as part of the Red Bull Showrun in Johannesburg, South Africa, in October 2024 [Ihsaan Haffejee\/Reuters]What is South Africa\u2019s F1 legacy?<\/p>\n

The sport had lived some \u201chistoric moments\u201d in the country, Tickell said, including a threatened strike led by Austrian driver Niki Lauda in 1982 against a racing \u201csuper licence\u201d restricting drivers\u2019 contractual freedom.<\/p>\n

South Africa also boasts the continent\u2019s only world champion, Ferrari\u2019s Jody Scheckter in 1979.<\/p>\n

Is a South Africa F1 race viable?<\/p>\n

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 Grands Prix than in 2009, for example.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven if races are not commercially viable, to some of the countries and their backers, that won\u2019t matter because it\u2019s a strategic payoff,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

China, for instance, has \u201clong been building sports infrastructure for African countries in return for access to their natural resources,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Johannesburg\u2019s Kyalami race track is certified as Grade 2, just a level below that needed for an F1 race and it would require some work to host an event.<\/p>\n

An alternative circuit vying to hold the prestigious race would snake through the streets of Cape Town, recently ranked \u201cbest city in the world\u201d by Time Out magazine.<\/p>\n

\"MotorsportEnvision Racing\u2019s Nick Cassidy and Nissan Formula E Team\u2019s Sacha Fenestraz in action during the Cape Town ePrix race in South Africa in 2023 [Nic Bothma\/Reuters]<\/p>\n

Winding its way around the stadium built for the 2010 men\u2019s football World Cup in the shadow of the emblematic Lion\u2019s Head mountain overlooking the ocean, the route has already hosted a Formula E race in 2023.<\/p>\n

Does South Africa have a continental rival?<\/p>\n

An F1 street circuit in the city would \u201coutclass Monaco,\u201d said Cape Town Grand Prix CEO Igshaan Amlay.<\/p>\n

Yet the real battle may be less between the two rival cities than against Rwanda, whose President Paul Kagame attended the Singapore Grand Prix in September to meet the sport\u2019s governing body the FIA and F1 owners Liberty Media, Chadwick said.<\/p>\n

The Central African country already sponsors Arsenal and Paris Saint-Germain football giants and is a partner of the NBA.<\/p>\n

\u201cRwanda is in pole position,\u201d Chadwick said.<\/p>\n

Morocco has also long held ambitions of hosting an F1 race.<\/p>\n

Still, nothing prevents two GPs from being held on the continent, with the South African sports minister asking: \u201cWhy is it that when it comes to Africa, we are treated like we can only get one?\u201d<\/p>\n

Rwanda\u2019s F1 bid could though be hampered by its involvement in the conflict in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo. Already calls are mounting to withdraw the cycling Road World Championships, planned for Kigali in September.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Published On 14 Mar 202514 Mar 2025 More than three decades after Formula One engines last roared on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":108630,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[3711,1687,372,6537,18733,50,4247,217,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-108629","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-f1","tag-africa","tag-f1","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-motorsports","tag-news","tag-south-africa","tag-sport","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108629","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=108629"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108629\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/108630"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=108629"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=108629"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=108629"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}