South Africa plans to raise $50 million (R992m) to help fund a bid to host a Formula 1 race, Sports Minister Gayton McKenzie said in an interview.

McKenzie said there has been discussions with the Formula 1 organisers during the week, and that the country will be submitting its bid in May to host the motor racing event in 2027. Talks with potential sponsors, such as Heineken and Red Bull among others, to help raise the capital needed to enter the bid are already underway, he said.

Seven-times world champion Lewis Hamilton said last year the time was right for a race in Africa.

“It is clear that people want to invest in this,” said McKenzie. “We have also gotten some promising news that Holland is not coming back so we might be getting that space in 2027.”

A previous bid to host the race in South Africa fell through in 2023. Potential race tracks have had the deadline to submit bids recently extended to mid-March, with Cape Town and Johannesburg among those hoping to host the event.

McKenzie said all South Africans and interested investors wanting to be part of hosting the event should enter their bids and join government in its Formula 1 push, rather than trying to do it separately.

If successful, South Africa’s bid to host the Grand Prix Formula 1 event will see the country return after a three decade hiatus. South Africa last hosted a Formula 1 race at the Kyalami race track north of Johannesburg in 1993 - the year before the country’s first multiracial elections ended decades of White-minority rule.

Rwanda has also expressed its interest in hosting Formula 1, although any potential race track might not have enough capacity and infrastructure to meet the stringent requirements of hosting.

McKenzie invited South African President Cyril Ramaphosa to join him at the Chinese Formula 1 event to help raise funds for the hosting plans.

“I am saying to you that if I don’t bring Formula 1 to South Africa, then I have failed as a Minister of Sports,” McKenzie said of the position to which he was appointed in June as part of a newly formed coalition government. “Formula 1 is coming by fire or by force.”

BLOOMBERG