Formula 1 is returning to Africa for the first time in more than three decades. Rwanda has signed a 10-year agreement to host the Formula 1 African Grand Prix, presented by Visit Rwanda.
President Paul Kagame, Formula 1 President and CEO Stefano Domenicali and FIA President Mohammed Ben Sulayem announced the deal in Kigali on Tuesday 13th October 2026. The race is due to join the calendar in the early 2030s, depending on when the circuit is completed.
It will be the sport’s first race on the continent since Alain Prost won the 1993 South African Grand Prix at Kyalami. Rwanda will become the third African country to host a round of the championship, after South Africa and Morocco.
“Today belongs to Africa,” HE President Kagame said at the launch. He said Rwanda would share the moment with more than 100 million fans across the continent, many of them young people who deserve to see themselves in the sport “as engineers, technicians, entrepreneurs and, one day, drivers.”
Domenicali called the announcement “a landmark moment for Formula 1.” The circuit has not yet been built. It will be in Bugesera District, about 40 kilometres south of Kigali, beside the new Bugesera International Airport, which is still under construction.
Rwanda announced its bid in December 2024, when Kagame made the declaration at the FIA General Assembly in Kigali. Rwanda has built a sports portfolio that includes hosting the 2023 FIFA Congress and the 2025 UCI Road World Championships.
The formula 1 project in Rwanda signals that African nations can lead and deliver the most complex logistical, technological, and infrastructural events on the globe.
