Ramaphosa to attend Grand Prix this year in push to bring F1 to SA in 2028

President Cyril Ramaphosa is expected to attend a Formula One grand prix later this year as part of South Africa’s renewed push to bring the sport back to the country.

The visit forms part of the country’s ambition to host a F1 race in Africa for the first time since the end of apartheid. It would be the first F1 race to be held in South Africa since 1993, a grand prix won by Alain Prost in a Williams.

Sport, arts and culture minister Gayton McKenzie confirmed the development during a media briefing in Pretoria on Thursday. “His Excellency President Cyril Ramaphosa has agreed to join me at a Formula One grand prix later this year. This is a working visit, not a social one,” he said.

Tuesday was the deadline for bidders to express their interest in hosting a South African Formula One Grand Prix, with Cape Town and Kyalami seemingly the two biggest rivals for hosting the event. In December 2024, sport, arts and culture minister Gayton McKenzie announced a team of experts to form South Africa’s Formula One bid steering committee for the return of the international motor racing event, last held in 1993 at Kyalami and won by Alain Prost in a Williams-Renault. The team will choose which city and track to put forward for consideration to the F1 Group and global motorsport’s governing body, the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA). The deadline for submission was initially mid-February but was extended to March 18. “Hosting a Formula One Grand Prix would boost our economy, tourism and development while showcasing South Africa as a premier global sporting destination. This extension ensures bidders have the time to prepare exceptional proposals,” McKenzie said. McKenzie’s office did not respond to requests for comment for this article and it is not known how many bids were received, but TimesLIVE believes it may come down to a choice between Kyalami and Cape Town. Midrand-based Kyalami is a front-runner as the circuit is certified as grade 2 and is “90% ready” for an F1 race, according to circuit owner Toby Venter. Kyalami last year hired Apex Circuit Design to prepare a road map for FIA Grade 1 accreditation, which determined the circuit needs to spend between $5m and $10m to get the required Grade 1 rating. Kyalami hosted its first Formula One race in 1967 and has long held a prominent place in South African motorsport. Cape Town is also vying for the race with two separate bids. Cape Town Grand Prix SA (CTGPSA) has proposed running an F1 race on the same 5.7km street circuit that hosted Formula E in 2023, and which was hosted by CTGPSA. The track weaves through the Green Point sport tourism precinct which includes the DHL Stadium. A separate, independent Cape Town bid not submitted to the BSC, is funded by American company Boundless Motorsport which seeks to build a new FIA-certified Grand Prix circuit capable of hosting more than 125,000 fans close to the city. It is run by South African-born Bobby Hartslief, a former Kyalami Grand Prix and later Phakisa MotoGP organiser. In the three decades since South Africa last held an F1 Grand Prix there have been several attempts to bring it back but all have been stymied primarily by the huge cost. Every effort turned out to be a false start, leaving local F1 fans cynical about whether it will ever happen. This time the venture seems more likely due to receiving government support, with McKenzie an ardent motorsport fan who wants South Africa to be on the 2027 F1 calendar, and possibly as soon as 2026. The minister set the ball rolling when he met Formula One CEO Stefano Domenicali at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix in September. McKenzie revealed that hosting an F1 race could cost about R2bn and there were sponsors interested in funding it. However, even with sponsorship, ticket prices are likely to be expensive — the cheapest adult ticket at last weekend’s Australian Grand Prix in Melbourne was around R2,000. Other African countries, including Morocco and Rwanda, have also expressed interest in hosting F1. South Africa hosted F1 races between 1962 and 1993 and boasts the continent’s only world champion, Ferrari’s Jody Scheckter, in 1979. IFKJUZCA7ZPRRCPMOEKJ3GXO4E 6FXCHW7LTJN2FGHQ3JT3AXOWLE 2U3VXSFBNZK7FDLYVCLIJAAJM4 KRYEIGUDHFOYBCNXSHO6WAZFFQ

As a motorsport fan, McKenzie has campaigned for SA to be on the F1 calendar since his appointment as sport minister in July 2024.

Formula One has not staged a race in Africa for more than three decades. During that time the sport has expanded across the Middle East, Asia and the Americas, leaving Africa as the only continent without a race. McKenzie said F1 can’t be considered a world championship if it misses an entire continent.

“That is not acceptable and it is not sustainable. An entire generation of young African motorsport enthusiasts has never seen a Formula One race in their own backyard. We intend to change that.”

The president’s participation signals that the initiative has backing at the highest level of government, he said.

“There are criteria that any country must meet to host a grand prix — commercial, logistical, infrastructural and safety requirements — and we are working methodically to meet each of them.

“The president’s visit will allow us to observe, engage and strengthen our case. I will provide further details on the timing and the specific grand prix in due course, in coordination with the Presidency.”

Volkswagen Group Africa (VWGA) has recreated a memorable moment from its iconic “VW You and Me” television advert from 1988. Last month more than 1,500 employees gathered at the company’s Kariega car factory near Gqeberha to form a human version of the Volkswagen logo for an advert VWGA is refreshing for the 21st century. The original advert, which featured nearly 3,000 Volkswagen employees of different races and ages, was a snapshot of what South Africa could look like six years ahead of the country becoming a democracy in 1994. The advert won a Loerie award and was ranked South Africa’s favourite commercial in 1988. Partnering again with Ogilvy (then Rightford, Searle-Tripp and Makin), a long-standing creative partner to VWGA who originally brought the advert to life in 1988, the company decided to create a new version of the advert as part of its 75th anniversary in South Africa this year. To recreate the advert, a film crew spent three days at Plant Kariega capturing employees in their work environment. The people logo, which involved employees gathering along the existing Volkswagen spekboom logo (planted by employees on Earth Day in 2021), included almost half of the VWGA workforce. The advert also features several employees in individual shots or in smaller groups.

Several attempts to bring the grand prix back to the country have been thwarted due to the high cost of hosting the event. In July 2025 McKenzie expressed confidence that the race would take place in 2027, with potential sponsors ready to fund the event which reputedly costs around R2bn.

His comments at the time followed Kyalami being given the green light for upgrades by the FIA, the organisation that runs F1 racing. Kyalami owner Toby Venter revealed that the FIA had accepted final design proposals to upgrade the 4.5km circuit from grade 2 to grade 1 status, the international standard required to host F1 racing.

Earlier this year, however, McKenzie confirmed that South Africa would not host a grand prix in 2027 due to underestimating the financial and logistical requirements, and the government was instead focusing on a potential bid for 2028 or 2029.

TimesLIVE