Lewis Hamilton, seven time world champion, showed his eagerness for the return of South African Grand Prix to Formula 1.
South African has hosted 23 F1 races before losing its spot on F1 calendar between 1962 to 1993. Kyalami circuit hosted the last grand prix of the sport.
Possible return of the F1 to the country was discussed on many occasions. However, no deal was successful to bring the sport back.
Last year, Formula 1 planned to host a fan festival in Johannesburg. It was later called off because of global pandemic.
Formula 1 was due to host a fan festival in Johannesburg last year. But the event was called off because of the pandemic.
This year, Saudia Arabia and Qatar will be hosting the sport for the first time. Miami will be another addition to the calendar to the F1 next year in 2022. However, Africa has not hosted the F1 for about three decades.
Hamilton, while answering to a question regarding which country would he like to incorporate in the F1 calendar. He said: “The place that I really feel is dear to my heart and most important for me is to get a race back in South Africa.
“I think there is a great following out there and I think it would be great to be able to highlight just how beautiful the motherland is.”
Hamilton also wanted to expand F1 calendar beyond a single race in US.
“The US GP is fantastic and is 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,” he added.
“I think definitely we need at least to have two. But there are so many great cities to have a grand prix and 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.
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“I think it is quite cool having these kind of continent or mini championships in these continents, I think that is not a bad thing for the sport.”
Charles Leclerc, Ferrari driver, also supported additional races in United States and Africa.
“Formula 1 is getting bigger and bigger in the last years thanks to the Netflix series and here I can definitely feel it and see it and I love also this country, it is great to be here and I would be very happy to have a third race here,” he said.
“I agree with Lewis, on Africa in general, it would be great to have a race there.”
