F1 used to race in Kyalami but that ended because of anti apartheid movement.
Hard to imagine any African country can afford to waste the money to host an F1 race.
Is Lewis willing to pay? I didn't think so.
this post was submitted on 05 Mar 2026
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Affording a race itself probably isnt the problem, there are various financing models for that. Austria for example certainly isn't paying for hosting the GP in Spielberg; Red Bull is. Private equity could fund it in South Africa, the government would probably fund it in Rwanda. The problem as I imagine it is probably the investment cost for building/adapting a circuit to get it FIA graded.
While it's true that F1 originally left South Africa because of apartheid, they did return to South Africa for three seasons in the 90s after apartheid ended. Ultimately it (again) came down to hosting a F1 race being fucking expensive, not apartheid
Kyalami is grade 2, and apparently even that has expired, so who knows. Plus it holds only a hundred thousand people, which doesn't seem to be enough for F1 these days. It's a pretty cool track that would be inevitably butchered by Tilke if F1 touches it.
Supposed to be in a year or two, right?
There was a lot of talk but nothing's been confirmed. There are 1-2 slots left for 2027 I believe?
asking the sport's bosses "why are we not in Africa?".
Money. Lewis can afford to sponsor it if he cares about it.
Lewis doesn't even want to pay income taxes. These races are festivals of graft and corruption.
They didn't ask Verstappen to sponsor the Dutch GP, so why does Lewis have to be the one financing or making the case for a race in a region where he has plenty of fans?
They didnโt ask Verstappen to sponsor the Dutch GP
Zandvoort secured the funding, then pulled out after Verstappen said he'll not be in F1 for much longer.
so why does Lewis have to be the one financing or making the case for a race in a region where he has plenty of fans?
Because he said he wants a race to be there.
Ok, so if Zandvoort was able to finance a race on the basis of fan following alone without Max's involvement, why can't someone do the same here?
why canโt someone do the same here?
Ask the owners of all the courses that don't host F1 races in Africa.
Well you're the one who said Lewis should sponsor it; I figured you knew.
If I want something, I have to pay for it myself as well. That's how capitalism works.
If you wanted something for yourself, sure. F1 is still the major beneficiary from running a new race.
Afaik there arecurrently zero courses with the necessary FIA grading of Grade 1 in Africa. Morocco has multiple Grade 2 circuits, and Kyalami used to be Grade 2 but that expired a year ago, so they are currently ungraded.
That means that in order to be eligible for an F1 race, these courses would need to modernize and undergo an FIA process.
I personally assume that due to this, any African race we could get would be a street track.
How many African drivers are in F1?
Irrelevant.
Oh really? Tell me then: whom do Dutch F1 fans root for, when they visit the races?
When you tell me who Brazilian fans root for.
As it happens, that's Hamilton, because he's liked there for some reason and is an honorary Brazilian citizen.
Ah, ok; so you don't need to be from that region to have fans thereโฆ that's what I thought.
Hamilton gathered reputation in Brazil by racing at Interlagos. Pray tell where he could've raced to have gathered fans in Africa that should now flock to the new circuit to see him.
Was Hamilton racing by himself in Brazil? By this logic, there are no F1 fans in Africa, or anywhere for the sport to expand into.
Well, you're gonna have to come up with a better example, as Interlagos predates F1 itself, having been opened in 1940; and there've been five Brazilian drivers in F1 up to 1972, when F1 debuted in Brazil and when Emerson Fittipaldi was racing, who happens to have been born in Sรฃo Paulo. There's been thirty-two Brazilian drivers in total before 2025, when Bortoleto joined, so no shortage.
In fact, it's probably better to look at how developed motorsport is in a country, for the measure of how ready fans are to go to races. South Africa does look the most promising in this regard โ RacingCircuits lists seven active tracks and two more historic ones, out of twenty combined total on the continent. And actually, there have been previously seventeen South African drivers who started in an F1 race, and eight more who did idk what. But since it's been forty-five years since the last of them, it's still unclear if the interest would be there.