Here’s a little bit of silliness from Formula 1, from Lewis Hamilton:
Lewis Hamilton has called for a Formula One race to be held in Africa, claiming that there is “no excuse” for the sport not to return to the continent.
There has not been a Grand Prix in Africa since the 1993 South African GP, with Hamilton insisting that it is time for a comeback.
Asked if it was the right time for the F1 to return to Africa, Hamilton replied: “100 per cent. We can’t be adding races in other locations and continue to ignore Africa, which the rest of the world just takes from.
“No one gives anything to Africa. There’s a huge amount of work that needs to be done there. I think a lot of the world that haven’t been there don’t realise how beautiful the place is, how vast it is.
“I think having a grand prix there, it would really be able to highlight just how great the place is and bring in tourism and all sorts of things. Why are we not on that continent? And the current excuse is that there’s not a track that’s ready, but there is at least one track that’s ready there.
“In the short term, we should just get on that track and have that part of the calendar and then work on building out something moving forward.”
…because “equity”, you see.
Actually, I can see several reasons (not “excuses”) for Africa to be ignored by F1.
The only country capable of staging a Grand Prix is South Africa, with its Kyalami circuit north of Johannesburg. I invite Lewis to visit the place — but without any kind of security (no bodyguards etc.).
If Kyalami were off the table, then Cape Town could probably build a street circuit (it’s been mooted before), as they did with the Formula E race last year.
But Formula E isn’t Formula 1, and it should be noted that Cape Town is Eco-Green Loony Central (which would no doubt please Hamilton). The arrival of all those smelly, Gaia-destroying F1 cars is unlikely to find much support there.
Elsewhere in Africa, forget about it. Unless Liberty Media were to undertake to build a new track in, oh, Kenya — the only African city outside South Africa with a halfway-decent airport — and build in all the infrastructure (electricity, water, roads etc.) to support it, it would never happen.
Even if they did — and they won’t — it would take years before the project would be completed. With current trends, F1 will be racing wind-powered cars before that happens.
Don’t even think about any of the countries north of the Sahara either, because the infrastructure issues would be even worse than in South Africa, with the added flavor of radical Islam to spice things up.
Like all DEI dreams, the idea of a Grand Prix race in Africa sucks, for practical reasons. But of course, when it comes to DEI, that nasty reality has no place — and Lewis Hamilton is no different from any other dreamer.
