Rwanda targeting F1 race, meeting F1 bosses in September

F1 has been expanding recently all over the world with the United States hosting three races, Miami, Austin and Las Vegas. The Middle East also has an extra race in Qatar in addition to Saudi Arabia and Abu Dhabi.

The sport recently announced that there will be an F1 race in Madrid starting 2026, and while there has been a lot of talk about having a race in Africa, nothing has developed in that regard.

That is until now, as Rwanda seems to be closing in on a deal with FOM to host the first F1 race in the continent since the 1993 South African Grand Prix.

In an interview with Motorsport.com, F1 CEO Stefano Domenicali confirmed the meeting with Rwanda representatives, he said: "They are serious.

"They have presented a good plan and actually we have a meeting with them at the end of September. It will be on a permanent track.

“We want to go to Africa, but we need to have the right investment, and the right strategic plan," the Italian went on. "We need to have the right moment, and we need to make sure that also in that country, in that region, in that continent, there is the right welcoming, because, of course, they have other priorities. We need to be always very careful in making the right choices."

Domenicali is satisfied with the demand on hosting F1 races right now which was not the case before, he said: "Up until 2020 we were in a situation where the number of places that wanted to host F1 were not so numerous.

"Therefore we were not able to apply what I would say was a constructive pressure to grow what we can offer to our customers and to our fans.

"Now, we are on the other side. We have so many places around the world that want to host F1 that it allows us to make sure that we are working together with all of them to grow the experience.

"With 24 races, I see that there's a number that will be stable, and we can really tune the ones that we are discussing to see what will be the future in the middle term.

"I don't see big changes coming in the short term, but in the next couple of months we need to discuss what will be '26, '27 and '28. We have different options but we are in a good place," Domenicali concluded.

Rwanda Development Board travelled to the Monaco Grand Prix and met with the FIA. The East African country will hosting the FIA Annual General Assembly and Prize Giving Ceremony at its capital city Kigali in December later this year.