Hamilton: Return of South African GP 'most important to me'

40

Lewis Hamilton says that it would be his dream to see Formula 1 return to South Africa, a former mainstay of the calendar.

The country previously hosted 23 races, with the last held in 1993 at the Kyalami circuit. Previous repeat winners of the South African GP have included Jim Clark, Niki Lauda, Jackie Stewart, Alain Prost, Carlos Reutemann and Nigel Mansell.

But despite recurring rumours that the race could be back on the schedule, but nothing firm has emerged. A fan festival scheduled for Johannesburg in 2020 was thwarted by the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic.

Hamilton is hoping that this will change. “The place I really feel to my heart is most important to me is to get a race back in South Africa," he told the media last week.

"There is a great following out there and I think it would be great to highlight how beautiful the motherland is."

©KyalamiGrandPrixCircuit

This year will see F1 head to new venues in Saudi Arabia and Qatar, while next May will see the addition of a second race in the US on the streets of the city of Miami.

Hamilton has no problem with a second GP in the country, especially after the latest hugely successful race at the Circuit of the Americas last weekend.

"The US GP is fantastic," Hamilton said. "It's such a huge country. Having just one race here isn't enough to really to be able to tap into the sporting culture here and encapsulate the fans and get them on a journey with us.

"I think definitely we need at least to have two," he suggested. "But there are so many great cities to have a Grand Prix.

"If they are going to have one, Miami is going to be incredible as is Austin, I don't know where they will have the next one but I am not opposed to that.

"It's quite cool having these kind of continent or mini championships in these continents," he added. "I think that is not a bad thing for the sport."

Read also: Rosberg still 'leaning towards Hamilton' for title glory

Hamilton's positive thoughts about more races in the US were shared by Ferrari's Charles Leclerc.

"F1 is getting bigger and bigger in the last years thanks to the Netflix series [Drive to Survive]," he commented. "I can definitely feel it and see it

"I love also this country, it is great to be here and I would be very happy to have a third race here.

"I also agree with Lewis, on Africa in general. It would be great to have a race there."

Gallery: The beautiful wives and girlfriends of F1 drivers

Keep up to date with all the F1 news via Facebook and Twitter

Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.