It has now been eight years since Lewis Hamilton first went on record and asked for F1 to return to Kyalami to bring back the South African Grand Prix. The seven-time world champion reiterated his dreams in Las Vegas last weekend as the sport’s newest calendar acquisition saw its debut.
F1’s 2024 calendar stands at a record-breaking 23 races but while the sport claims to be a World Championship, they currently don’t race on all of the inhabited continents. The one glaring admission is Africa, where the sport hasn’t raced since 1993.
There have been 23 South African Grands Prix in the history of the F1 World Championship and Hamilton has been pushing hard for a 24th to be staged in the coming years as the sport looks to continue expanding its reach across the globe.
Speaking back in 2015 after claiming his third Drivers’ Championship title, Hamilton told the BBC: “I would love for it to be in South Africa. They are great sporting fans and are just petrolheads who love cars. I would love to go there, it would be absolutely insane.
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“There is a huge following there and it is one of the most important Grands Prix we need to get on the calendar. This is the first time that black South Africans have had someone to relate to in this sport. I feel incredibly privileged to be at the front of that.”
Fortunately for the 38-year-old, there is a push for F1 to make its long-awaited return to Africa. There were plans in the pipeline for the South African GP to return as early as next season, although these have been moved back until 2025 at the earliest.
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F1 chief Stefano Domenicali addressed the need for a race on the African continent himself, stating: “There are areas of the world that wants to have Formula One, and I think that one area that we want to develop is the African area. We are a world championship, and that’s an area where we are not there.”
Hamilton certainly isn’t forgetting the plans either. In Las Vegas last weekend he told Sky Sports: “There’s one more race we need and that’s going to be Africa. We have all the other continents and why not there? So that’s the one I’m working on pushing right now.”
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