New South Africa F1 Bid Emerges — Because the Third Time’s the Charm, Right?
A new private group wants to bring Formula 1 back to South Africa. Blue Mountain Racing (BMR), led by businessman Neal Froneman (former CEO of Sibanye-Stillwater) and chief executive Bobby Hartslief, who helped run races at Kyalami back in the early 1980s, has unveiled plans for a 600-hectare site in the Swartland region north of Cape Town, featuring a 4.8-kilometre track with a straight over a kilometre long and natural elevation changes.
The ambitions are big: construction starting in 2029, homologation in 2030, and a first race targeted for 2031, with room for around 125,000 spectators a day and a minimum track width of 12 metres designed specifically for overtaking. Sounds great on paper, except South Africa is already a graveyard of failed bids – including proposals for Cape Town and Kyalami itself, none of which made it past the PowerPoint stage.
Still, the support is there: Lewis Hamilton recently said he doesn’t want to leave the sport without Africa having a grand prix, and F1 CEO Stefano Domenicali confirmed that “negotiations are progressing very well” for the sport’s return to the continent after three decades away (F1 last raced in South Africa back in 1993). Whether BMR turns out different from its predecessors remains to be seen – but history isn’t exactly on its side.
Source: The Race (https://www.the-race.com/business/new-south-africa-f1-race-proposal-emerges-is-it-realistic/)
