Seven-time Formula 1 world champion Lewis Hamilton has named Kenya as one of the African countries he could see himself living in, while vowing that he will not retire from the sport until it hosts a Grand Prix on the continent.
The 41-year-old British driver made the remarks ahead of the 2026 Formula One season opener in Melbourne, which runs from March 6 to 8, and will mark his second season with Scuderia Ferrari.
Hamilton, who identifies as half African and is widely regarded as the sport’s most prominent advocate for diversity, said he has spent the better part of a decade pushing Formula 1’s leadership to include Africa on the race calendar.
“For the past six years, I think, maybe seven, I’ve been fighting in the background to get a Grand Prix,” he said. “Sitting with the stakeholders and asking them, ‘Why are we not in Africa?’ We’re on every other continent, why not Africa?”
The sport has not held a race in Africa since 1993, when the South African Grand Prix was staged at the Kyalami Circuit. Efforts to revive a presence on the continent have surfaced repeatedly in recent years, with proposals centring on Rwanda, a possible return to Kyalami, and a proposed street circuit in Cape Town, though none has yet materialised.
Hamilton made clear he considers an African Grand Prix a matter of personal mission. “I don’t want to leave the sport without having a Grand Prix there, without getting to race there. I’m going to be here for a while until that happens because that will be amazing, given that I’m half African,” he said.
Reflecting on his travels across the continent, Hamilton singled out Kenya and Rwanda as the countries that left the deepest impression, saying both were places he could genuinely imagine calling home.
“I loved Kenya, although I don’t think we’re going to have a Grand Prix there. Rwanda was particularly spectacular. Those are two places where I felt like I could live,” he said. “South Africa is also stunning. I think those are the ones that would be good places for us to potentially go to.”
Hamilton, who has now visited 10 African countries, also spoke with evident emotion about the continent’s natural wealth and what he described as the historical exploitation of its resources. “It is the most beautiful part of the world, and I don’t like that the rest of the world owns so much of it and takes so much from it and no one speaks about it,” he said. “I’m really hoping that the people who are running those different countries all unite and come together and take Africa back. That’s what I want to see.”
The Ferrari driver enters the new season seeking to bounce back from a difficult debut campaign with the Prancing Horse, which proved statistically his toughest in Formula 1. He failed to finish on the podium in a race throughout 2025, his sole highlight being a victory in the Shanghai Sprint. It is his 20th season in the sport overall.
Hamilton has previously spoken about how his African travels have profoundly affected him. In an earlier account of one such journey, he described the experience as transformative, saying it had given him a new perspective on life and left him feeling “truly re-centred and at peace.”
His remarks on Thursday reinforced that sense of deep personal connection. Despite turning his attention in the coming days to the season-opening Australian Grand Prix, Hamilton’s message was unambiguous: his time in Formula 1 will not feel complete until the sport returns to the continent he considers part of his identity.
