President Paul Kagame unveiled the deal on 13 October 2026, confirming that Africa will have a seat on the Formula 1 calendar for the first time in more than three decades. The first race is scheduled for the early 2030s, once the circuit and the airport beside it are built.
The venue is being developed in Bugesera, roughly 40 kilometres south of Kigali, next to a new international airport that is due to open in early 2028. The event will be branded the “Formula One African Grand Prix, presented by Visit Rwanda”, a continental framing that F1 and the Rwandan government have both leaned into.
A six-kilometre circuit through the hills
The 6-kilometre layout runs anti-clockwise through 17 corners, with 197 metres of elevation change per lap at an altitude of around 1,500 metres above sea level. It is being designed by Wurz Designs, led by former F1 driver Alex Wurz, together with Tilke Engineering, and will meet FIA Grade 1 standards.
Wurz said the terrain made the choice obvious once his team visited the Bugesera site.
“The nature designed already the perfect topography,” he told Formula 1.
“It’s two hills with the lake below.”
Carsten Tilke framed the design brief around the on-track product.
“We needed to create overtaking points. Different strategies are possible. The focus was always the spectator. Spectators must be close to the track.”
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Spectator capacity is projected at around 100,000, with the site also designed for motorcycle racing, karting, concerts and exhibitions year-round. According to Jalopnik, the Bugesera airport is a $2 billion project in its own right; the financial terms of the race deal itself have not been disclosed.
Behind Rwanda’s sports play
For Formula 1, the agreement is the next step in an expansion push that has pulled new races into North America and the Middle East in recent seasons.
“Africa has always been part of Formula 1’s future, and from the beginning we were determined to return in the right way, with the right partner,” said Stefano Domenicali, the championship’s president and CEO.
The commercial logic is in F1’s own numbers: the sport puts its African fan base above 100 million, with nearly 60% of its Sub-Saharan audience under 35.
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The race also slots into a well-worn Rwandan playbook. The country has run shirt-front “Visit Rwanda” deals with Arsenal, Bayern Munich, Paris Saint-Germain and Atlético Madrid, hosted the UCI Road World Championships in 2025, and last year added a sponsorship with the Los Angeles Rams. Tourism receipts stood at $685 million in 2025, and the Rwanda Development Board has set a target of $1.1 billion by 2029.
The sportswashing question
The announcement did not land without pushback. Jalopnik noted that Kagame has been in power since 2000, was re-elected in 2024 with nearly 99% of the vote after six opposition candidates were barred, and that UN investigations have documented “politically motivated murders” of government opponents and alleged Rwandan military backing of the M23 rebellion in the Democratic Republic of Congo. More than 38% of Rwandans live below the international poverty line of $3 a day, the same report said.
Lewis Hamilton, who has long argued publicly for a return to the continent, had restated his position at the Singapore Grand Prix the week before the announcement.
“We need to have a Grand Prix in Africa,” he said, in comments reported by Al Jazeera.
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Rwanda has not fixed a date for the inaugural race. Rwanda Development Board CEO Jean-Guy Afrika said the timing hinges on “the completion of the circuit and supporting infrastructure”, with the Bugesera airport due in early 2028 and the circuit build still ahead.
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