Three decades after the last Formula One engines roared on African soil, South Africa is vying to host a new Grand Prix and bring the world championship back to the continent.
The race for the prestigious event is down to two contenders: a street circuit in Cape Town and the historic, though less scenic, Kyalami racetrack near Johannesburg.
A committee formed by Sports Minister Gayton McKenzie will decide which bid wins in the third quarter of the year, according to committee member Mlimandlela Ndamase.
McKenzie remains optimistic about South Africa's prospects.
"The Grand Prix is definitely coming in 2027, no doubt about that," he said in early February.
"Whether it is Cape Town or Joburg, we do not care as long as the Grand Prix is coming to South Africa."
The challenging Kyalami circuit – which winds about 30 kilometers (20 miles) outside Johannesburg, with the track painted with a huge, colorful South African flag – once hosted nail-biting races and legendary drivers.
But the last Grand Prix on African soil was held in 1993, the year before South Africa's first democratic elections that ended apartheid. It was won by Alain Prost in a Williams.
South Africa's bid to host F1 can count on the support of seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton, who has long advocated for an African Grand Prix.
"We can't be adding races in other locations and continuing to ignore Africa," Hamilton said last August.
Under the leadership of U.S. conglomerate Liberty Media, which bought the Formula One Group in 2017, the sport wants to "go to every continent," said expert Samuel Tickell of the University of Münster in Germany.
Returning to South Africa would be "something very important for Formula 1, which has not raced there since the end of the apartheid era," he told Agence France-Presse (AFP).
The sport had some "historic moments" in the country, Tickell said, including a threatened strike led by Niki Lauda in 1982 against a racing "super-licence" restricting drivers' contractual freedom.
South Africa also boasts the continent's only world champion, Ferrari's Jody Scheckter, in 1979.
Creating a race on the continent would not require excluding other venues, as the F1 calendar is always expanding. The upcoming season will feature seven more Grand Prix than in 2009, for example.
Sky-high organizational costs and hosting fees would not be an obstacle, said Simon Chadwick, professor of sport and geopolitical economics at Skema Business School in Paris.
"Even if races are not commercially viable, to some of the countries and their backers, that won't matter because it's a strategic payoff," he said.
China, for instance, has "long been building sports infrastructure for African countries in return for access to their natural resources," he said.
Johannesburg's Kyalami racetrack is certified as Grade 2, just one level below that needed for an F1 race, and it will require some work to host an event.
An alternative circuit vying to host the prestigious race would wind through the streets of Cape Town, recently ranked "best city in the world" by Time Out magazine.
Winding its way around the stadium built for the 2010 men's football World Cup, in the shadow of the emblematic Lion's Head mountain overlooking the ocean, the route hosted a Formula E race in 2023.
A Formula 1 street circuit in the city would "outclass Monaco," said Cape Town Grand Prix CEO Igshaan Amlay.
Yet the real battle may be less between the two rival cities than against Rwanda, whose President Paul Kagame attended the Singapore Grand Prix in September to meet the sport's governing body, the FIA, and F1 owners Liberty Media, Chadwick said.
The central African country already sponsors Arsenal and Paris Saint-Germain football giants and is a partner of the NBA.
"Rwanda is in pole position," Chadwick said.
Morocco has also long had ambitions of hosting an F1 race.
Still, nothing prevents two Grand Prix from being held on the continent, with the South African sports minister asking: "Why is it that when it comes to Africa, we are treated like we can only get one?"
Rwanda's F1 bid could, however, be hampered by its involvement in the conflict in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.
Calls are already mounting to withdraw the cycling Road World Championships, planned in Kigali in September.
