Kyalami’s owners have cleared the paperwork side of a comeback F1 has not staged for more than three decades. The FIA signed off on the South African circuit’s Grade 1 upgrade plans in 2025, giving Kyalami a three-year window to bring run-off areas, barriers, debris fencing, kerbs and drainage up to the standard Formula 1 requires. The circuit layout itself stays as it is.
Formula 1’s boss now says the political and commercial side is moving too.
“I think what I can say is that negotiations are progressing very well in Africa,” F1 CEO Stefano Domenicali told reporters.
He named Kyalami alongside Morocco and Rwanda as the venues in play, with parallel talks running in South America.
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The three tests any host must pass
The optimism is not a signed deal yet. Domenicali has laid out a three-part checklist any African bid must meet before F1 commits: investment that benefits the host community beyond the race weekend itself; infrastructure that reaches past the circuit to hotels, roads and airports; and an economic base capable of sustaining the event long-term.
“We’re not on standby, we’re working to assess what’s still missing before we can say, ‘Okay, let’s go’,” Domenicali said.
“But we’re not there yet.”
The Kyalami work itself has been estimated at between R83 million and R167 million, roughly US$5-10 million. The circuit’s PR office has said the money would need to come from government, because “Formula One would want a guarantee from the government”.
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Hamilton has his own deadline
Lewis Hamilton is the sport’s loudest campaigner for the return, and he has tied his own future to it. Speaking at the season-opening Australian Grand Prix in Melbourne in March, the seven-time champion made the position explicit.
“I don’t want to leave the sport without having a grand prix there, without getting to race there,” Hamilton said. “I’m chasing them: when is it going to be? They’re setting certain dates and I’m like ‘damn, I’m running out of time’.”
“So I’m going to be here for a while until that happens, because that would be amazing, given that I’m half African.”
The 41-year-old Ferrari driver said he has been working behind the scenes on the file for six or seven years, and singled out Rwanda and South Africa as two of the places he had felt he “could live”.
Why 2029 is the realistic target
The calendar is where optimism collides with reality. F1 already runs 24 races a year, the current cap under the Concorde Agreement, and Portugal is scheduled to return in 2027 and 2028. That pushes South Africa’s earliest realistic slot to 2029, unless F1 drops an existing race from its schedule.
Formula 1 last raced in Africa at the 1993 South African Grand Prix at Kyalami. On his own count, Hamilton has been fighting for a return for the best part of a decade. On the evidence Domenicali laid out this month, he may still be racing when the answer arrives.
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