For some South Africans, the phrase “’n boer maak ’n plan” is a proud part of our cultural identity. We like to think that we’re good at finding a solution when confronted by adversity, and this quality seems to be shared by all walks of South African life. Watching the Bahrain F1 Grand Prix on DStv last weekend, I couldn’t help thinking that “a Bahraini makes a plan” could also catch on.
As you can work out from its official title — the Formula 1 Gulf Air Bahrain Grand Prix in Malaysia — the event didn’t actually take place in Bahrain. The original Bahrain round had been scheduled for April at the Sakhir circuit and, along with the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, had to be called off because of the regional war.
This insecurity posed a safety risk to teams, staff, spectators and infrastructure, but more than that, it disrupted the supply lines so indispensable to F1. Regional air travel was heavily interrupted and the now infamous Strait of Hormuz, as crucial for sea freight into Gulf F1 venues as it is for oil out, faced repeated closures. That made conventional F1 freight movements to Bahrain untenable.
The amazing thing is that F1 didn’t simply replace the Bahrain Grand Prix with a Malaysian Grand Prix. It created a one-off, Bahrain-financed replacement event, keeping Bahrain’s official race title and commercial and cultural identity. Watching the race, there were times you might have imagined you were in Bahrain, from the spiky red and white national flags and colours everywhere, to the fact that instead of the celebratory victory champagne, drivers were handed bottles (unbranded, from what I could see) of waard, the alcohol-free pomegranate and rosewater drink provided at Bahrain’s traditional podium celebration.
More than 560 Bahraini track marshals and event staff travelled to Malaysia to physically run and manage the race alongside local staff, and a replica of a traditional Bahraini souk was set up at the track, complete with authentic Bahraini cuisine, live Arabic music, shawarma stalls and henna artists.
The funding structure meant that Malaysia didn’t need to re-enter F1 as a conventional promoter paying a full hosting fee. Bahrain carried most of the cost, while Malaysia’s contribution was reportedly about £3m, mainly for track-related upgrades.
On the move
Malaysia’s Sepang worked as a replacement because, as a circuit that hosted F1 from 1999 to 2017 and continues to stage top-level motorsport, it avoided the much harder task of designing, upgrading and — not a word I’ve ever used before — homologating a new venue. It also helps that it’s relatively close to Singapore, which makes it a little simpler to bring in road and air freight.
And, boy, there’s a lot of freight to be moved. The same company that has sponsored our very own Stormers rugby team for the past 14 years is F1’s official global logistics partner. Since 2004, DHL has co-ordinated the movement of much of F1’s freight between Grands Prix. This includes the cars, spares, tyres, garage equipment, fuel, hospitality infrastructure and broadcast technology. This “logistical feat of global proportions … a carefully choreographed symphony of movements across sea, air, and land … balancing speed, volume, cost, and sustainability” is described on the DHL site.
During 2025, for example, there were “24 races, five continents, 21 countries, and up to 1,200 metric tons of equipment per event … with three triple-headers and five double-headers. From cars and pit garages to broadcast centres and hospitality suites, every piece must arrive precisely where and when it’s needed”.
Ocean freight carries the bulk of the load — stuff categorised as nonessential to on-track performance, like garage structural kits, hospitality suites and fan zones. To make it work, “teams send five or six identical sets of containers on long rotations, leapfrogging around the globe. For example, sea freight dispatched to China might next appear in Miami, while another set continues from Japan to Singapore and Baku. It’s a global jigsaw that only fits together with meticulous planning,” DHL tells us.
All of which makes the replication of the Bahrain race in Malaysia, with a roughly 10-week lead-in, even more impressive. I’m not sure if the fact that a Grand Prix in Malaysia can be so easily repackaged as a Bahraini experience is a tribute to the power of globalisation, or a sad indictment of the anodyne wash of globalised entertainment. It does seem a feat of imagination that the winner of the race will be considered a winner of the Bahrain Grand Prix in F1’s official record books. Apparently, you can rewrite history. You just need to do it as it’s happening.
