7-time World Champion Lewis Hamilton has called for the FIA and Formula One to shift their focus towards the African continent to possibly host races over there. This comes in amidst ongoing talks between Formula One and the government of Rwanda to possibly organise a Grand Prix in the African nation. Formula One has not travelled to the African continent since 1993 during the South African Grand Prix. F1’s CEO Stefano Domenicali held meetings with officials from Rwanda to discuss a permanent race track in the country to host grand prix weekends.
‘No One Gives Anything To Africa’- Lewis Hamilton
Lewis Hamilton has been very vocal about how F1 should go to Africa and have races there. After the Dutch GP had concluded, Hamilton had spoken up on the issues saying that F1 cannot keep adding races around the world but continue to ignore the continent as a whole.
“We can’t be adding races in other locations and continuing 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 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. And probably they don’t even know what the countries are doing still to those places in terms of holding back.
“So I think having a grand prix there will really be able to highlight just how great the place is and bring in tourism and all sorts of things,” said Hamilton.
Lewis Hamilton Pushing For F1 In Rwanda
“Why are we not on that continent? The current excuse is that maybe there’s not a track that’s ready, but there is at least one track that’s ready there.
“And 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.
“That’ll be a conversation I have with Stefano [Domenicali], who I know is also pushing to make sure.
“Rwanda is one of my favourite places I’ve been to, actually. I’ve been doing a lot of work in the background on it, I’ve spoken to people in Rwanda, I’ve spoken to people in South Africa.
“That’s a longer project, Rwanda. But it’s amazing that they’re so keen to be a part of it,” said Lewis Hamilton who had recently visited several African countries.
