Why Rwanda, and why now
Africa’s absence from the calendar was hard to defend. Kyalami hosted the South African Grand Prix from the 1960s to the mid-1980s and again in 1992 and 1993, and Lewis Hamilton has long said he wants a race on the continent before he retires. South African bids kept stalling, on funding and in one case on politics, while rival groups argued over who spoke for the country.
Rwanda arrived with a single decision-maker. The Rwanda Development Board ran a state-backed project that tied a purpose-built circuit to a new international airport, and Kagame made the bid formal in December 2024 when Kigali hosted the FIA prize-giving. A promoter signing for ten years wants a counterparty that can deliver, and Rwanda looked like one. South Africa’s sports minister, Gayton McKenzie, congratulated Kigali while insisting his country will have a race before 2030. Africa may yet host two.
What it costs
Hosting fees now make up more than a quarter of F1’s revenue, and the top of the market is expensive. Qatar and Saudi Arabia pay about $55 million a year, and Qatar’s ten-year deal is worth roughly $550 million. Rwanda’s terms have not been published in anything I found, so consider an illustration. A fee near Qatar’s would equal about 0.4% of an economy worth roughly $15 billion, and around 8.5% of the $647 million Rwanda earned from tourism in 2024. A modern circuit typically costs between $200 million and more than $1 billion to build.
Beside the track sits the $2 billion Bugesera airport, whose estimated cost has risen from $1.3 billion and which the IMF warned will add to Rwanda’s debt pressures. Qatar Airways owns 60% of the airport and is also a global F1 partner, so Gulf capital sits on both sides of the project. The headline impact figures from Las Vegas and Miami come from studies of rich visitor markets and do not transfer neatly to Kigali. The development board’s better argument is a 100,000-capacity venue used all year for concerts and exhibitions.
The politics F1 has chosen to carry
Rwanda has spent years buying visibility through sleeve deals with Arsenal, Paris Saint-Germain and Bayern Munich, and defends the spending as marketing for its biggest foreign-exchange earner. A Grand Prix is a far larger purchase. In March the United States sanctioned the Rwanda Defence Force and four senior officers over support for the M23 rebels in eastern Congo. Kigali denies the support and calls the sanctions one-sided. Congo’s foreign minister has urged F1 to walk away, warning against a "blood-stained association", and critics call the whole strategy sportswashing.
F1 already races in states with contested records, so the principle is not new. What is new is a ten-year contract with a host whose army is under sanctions over a war on its border. The Gulf offers a lesson. Bahrain and Saudi Arabia were cancelled in April amid regional conflict, removing roughly $115 million in hosting fees, about 14% of F1’s promoter income according to a Guggenheim note. Geography now carries a price.
What has to go right
There are four tests. The first is delivery. The track and the airport must exist, and Bugesera has already slipped once, with the airport now due in 2028. The second is access. F1 claims more than 100 million African fans, most of whom will watch on screens, and a 100,000-seat venue in a country with incomes near $1,040 needs tickets that locals can reach. The third is use. A circuit busy year-round is an asset, and one that wakes once a year is a liability. The fourth is legacy, meaning mechanics, engineers and drivers who come from the continent rather than fly in for the weekend.
Rwanda won because it could put a decade-long commitment on the table. Kyalami has the history. That is how the modern calendar is decided, and the deal will be judged on whether the venue outlives the race weekend.
Written by:
*Dr Iqbal Survé
Past chairman of the BRICS Business Council and co-chairman of the BRICS Media Forum and the BRNN
*Sesona Mdlokovana
Associate at BRICS+ Consulting Group
Africa Specialist
**The Views expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of Independent Media or IOL.
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