South African Formula One (F1) fans are entitled to a sulk. After years of imagining the world’s fastest cars back at Kyalami, we get to watch Rwanda spray the champers all over the podium. Yes, this sounds like sour grapes, because it is.
Last week, F1 announced a 10-year agreement for an African Grand Prix in Rwanda, starting in the 2030s. Given that Africa last hosted F1 at onse Kyalami in 1993, the sport has taken rather a long pit stop on the continent.
Rwanda’s venue is impressive: a purpose-built, 6km circuit at Bugesera, 40km south of Kigali, alongside the new airport. Former F1 driver Alex Wurz and designer Carsten Tilke are conjuring up a 17-corner layout around hills and a lake, with 197m of elevation change across a lap.
The glamour comes at a hefty cost, with construction estimated at upwards of $50m, before hosting fees of up to $50m a year.
Meanwhile, our own minister of sports, arts & culture, Gayton McKenzie, has been explaining why we need to pick up our collective lips.
“This is not a race,” he said. An unfortunate observation, given the subject. “Rwanda has not beaten us.” South Africa, he insists, still wants a race in 2028 or 2029.
And it is true, Africa could have more than one Grand Prix. This season there are nine European Grands Prix across eight countries, two in Spain alone. But the source of our envy is simple: Kigali has a signed agreement.
Of course, it’s much easier to get an F1 deal signed off if you have an authoritarian regime where your president is so incredibly beloved that he scored 99% of the vote in 2024.
South Africa, by contrast, would have taken forever. Imagine all the consultations, bid committees and requests for proposals, never mind the tenders. Ah, the tyranny of a democracy!
In December 2024, McKenzie estimated the race would cost the country R2bn a year — excluding upgrading Kyalami. “The money issue is the least of my worries,” he declared. By March, he said a government guarantee was secured, thanking Betway, Discovery, MTN, Canal+ and SuperSport for backing the project.
Not quick enough, it seems.
Still, Rwanda has done pretty well under President Paul Kagame’s iron fist: Singita Kwitonda, One&Only Gorilla’s Nest and Wilderness Bisate have made luxury holidays in the country a serious proposition, while its deal with Arsenal and PSG thrust its Visit Rwanda campaign into the public eye.
But not for nothing has Amnesty International called the F1 deal a “sportswashing prize”, citing repression, torture and Rwanda’s role in the Congo war. And just this week, the beheaded body of a Rwandan dissident was found in Uganda.
In the end, though, F1 is a money-making operation. If Fifa, sport’s modern mafia, can stage the world’s biggest tournament, why carp about F1?
As it is, Qatar already has a Grand Prix; Saudi Arabia’s race has drawn accusations of sportswashing amid large-scale silencing of critics; and Bahrain’s has proceeded against a backdrop of torture. Kagame should find the company familiar.
