LCPMar 5

Lewis Hamilton wants grand prix in Africa before retiring

https://lemmy.world/post/43879274

Lewis Hamilton wants grand prix in Africa before retiring - Lemmy.World

Lemmy

Show threadSaveTheTuaHawk

F1 used to race in Kyalami but that ended because of anti apartheid movement.

Hard to imagine any African country can afford to waste the money to host an F1 race.

Is Lewis willing to pay? I didn’t think so.

Mar 5 at 4:05pmWeb
Show threadMicrowMar 5
Affording a race itself probably isnt the problem, there are various financing models for that. Austria for example certainly isn’t paying for hosting the GP in Spielberg; Red Bull is. Private equity could fund it in South Africa, the government would probably fund it in Rwanda. The problem as I imagine it is probably the investment cost for building/adapting a circuit to get it FIA graded.
Show threadexcralMar 6
While it’s true that F1 originally left South Africa because of apartheid, they did return to South Africa for three seasons in the 90s after apartheid ended. Ultimately it (again) came down to hosting a F1 race being fucking expensive, not apartheid
Show threadSlurpingPusMar 6
Kyalami is grade 2, and apparently even that has expired, so who knows. Plus it holds only a hundred thousand people, which doesn’t seem to be enough for F1 these days. It’s a pretty cool track that would be inevitably butchered by Tilke if F1 touches it.