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Lewis Hamilton on F1 racing in Africa and Rwanda

Hamilton demands F1 to race in Africa: 'One track that's ready'

22 August at 16:35
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  • Ben Stevens
  • Editor

Formula 1 has not raced in Africa since 1993. The event was held at Kyalami, but since then, F1 hasn't visited the continent. There has been recent talk over the sport returning to Africa, with Rwanda currently in talks to host the next African Grand Prix. Lewis Hamilton is adamant that F1 should already be racing in the continent.  

'One track that's ready' 

Speaking to GPblog and others ahead of the Dutch Grand Prix, Lewis Hamilton strongly insisted that Formula 1 needs to return to Africa sooner rather than later and admitted there are no excuses. "We can't be adding races in other locations and continuing to ignore Africa, which the rest of the world just takes from. No one gives anything to Africa." the seven-time world champion pleaded, having visited the continent during F1's summer break. 

Hamilton continued on to say "There's a huge amount of work needs to be done there. I think a lot of the world that haven't been there don't realise how beautiful the place is, how fast it is. And probably they don't even know how or what the countries are doing still to those places and turn their back on them. So I think having a Grand Prix there will really be able to highlight just how great the place is and bring in tourism and all sorts of things."

"The current excuse," Hamilton revealed; "Is that maybe there's not a track that's ready, but there is at least one track that's ready there. And in the short term, we should just get on that track and have that part of the calendar and then work on building out something moving forward. That'll be a conversation I have with Stefano [Domenicali], who I know is also wishing to make sure."

Hamilton visited Rwanda in 2022, and but admits it's a longer project to get Rwanda on the F1 calendar. "Rwanda is one of my favourite places I've been to, actually. I've been doing a lot of work in the background on it, spoken to people in Rwanda, I've spoken to people in South Africa. But that's a longer project, Rwanda. But it's amazing that they're so keen to get part of it."