F1
Formula 1 is set to return to Africa for the first time since 1993. The world championship announced Tuesday that it had reached a ten-year agreement with Rwanda to host the African Grand Prix. The event's continental moniker highlights Rwanda's ambitions to be Africa's focal point for culture and commerce, but the deal has raised concerns as F1 partners with another national government with an abysmal human rights record.
Unlike recent long-term additions to the F1 calendar in Spain and the United States, the African Grand Prix will be run on a traditional permanent circuit. The new 3.7-mile circuit will be built near Bugesera International Airport. The new $2 billion airport for Kigali, the Rwandan capital, is set to open in 2028. The location wasn't chosen just for its proximity to the airport, but also for the Great Rift Valley's recognizable rolling landscape. Carsten Tilke, son of stalwart F1 track designer Hermann Tilke, and former F1 driver Alexander Wurz crafted the track's layout. Wurz said:
"When we learned about the development in Bugesera, and then we actually saw it, and you see the hillsides and the lakes, I said, 'guys, there's only one location this circuit should be, because it doesn't need us to design it, because the nature designed already the perfect topography."
Rwanda is going all in on sportswashing
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This is far from the first time that Rwanda's government has used sports to attract tourism and foreign investment. In 2018, Rwanda signed an eight-year, $115 million deal with Arsenal Football Club. The Premier League team plastered Visit Rwanda logos over team apparel and stadium video boards. Rwanda would later seal similar deals with other major European soccer clubs, such as Bayern Munich, Paris Saint-Germain and Atlético Madrid. The Los Angeles Rams in the NFL, which shares the same ownership group as Arsenal, announced their own Visit Rwanda deal last year.
Along with the massive sum of money spend on the Visit Rwanda tourism campaign, the country has already begun hosting major international events to direct attract visitors. Kigali hosted the UCI Road World Championships in 2025. It was the first time that cycling's winner-take-all race for the prized Rainbow Jersey was run in Africa. It's a bizarre tactic for spur economic development when over 38% of Rwanda's population are living below the International Poverty Line of $3 per day. At the African Grand Prix announcement, Rwandan President Paul Kagame said:
"Today belongs to Africa. For more than three decades, the world's premier motorsport championship has raced without this continent, and that changes with this agreement. Rwanda is proud to host the Formula 1 African Grand Prix, and to share this moment with more than 100 million fans across Africa, many of them young people who deserve to see the sport at home and to see themselves in it: as engineers, technicians, entrepreneurs and, one day, drivers. This ten-year partnership is also an investment in Rwanda's future. The circuit in Bugesera, alongside the new international airport, will bring jobs, skills, tourism and new business to our country and our region for decades to come, because our aim was never a single race weekend, but a lasting benefit for our people."
It's surprising what multi-million-dollar contracts can make people ignore
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These commercial ties to Rwanda sparked protests in Europe over human rights concerns. In 2010, the United Nations demanded that Kagame investigate the politically motivated murders of figures opposing his regime ahead of that year's election. Kagame was reelected with 93% of the vote. It was the closest election since he became President of Rwanda in 2000. I'm not joking. Kagame was elected to a fourth term with 99% of the vote last year after six other candidates were barred from running.
I bet you're wondering how Kagame has been able to remain in office legally for 26 years. The country's president was initially limited to two seven-year terms, but the constitution was amended in 2015, shortening terms to five years. The amendment also controversially reset Kagame's term limit, allowing him to run in 2017 and 2024. During this period, the UN also accused the Rwandan government of providing financial and material support to the M23 rebellion in the neighboring Democratic Republic of the Congo, being directly complicit in the "mass killings of civilians, as well as raping women and children."
Many in F1, including seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton, have long hoped the championship would return to Africa. However, this partnership with Kagame and the Rwandan government won't be as warmly received as expected. Given that FIA President Mohammad Ben Sulayem dismantled the governing body's term limits earlier this year, a race in Rwanda seems like an appropriate fit for the calendar.
Long-time fans hoped for a return to Kyalami Circuit in South Africa, where F1 last raced on the continent in 1993. Noise restrictions imposed on the track because of suburban development built around it over the decades since have made hosting an F1 weekend almost impossible. That's even before the investment needed to update Kyalami to modern FIA Grade 1 standards. The only disqualifying factor for F1 is a lack of capital.