Lewis Hamilton has made a strong statement regarding his retirement, saying that he will not leave the sport until Formula 1 returns to Africa. The seven-time world champion stressed that racing on the continent is a goal he wants to achieve before walking away from the sport.
Lewis Hamilton talks about retiring from F1
In a recent interview ahead of the first race of the 2026 Formula 1 season in Melbourne, Lewis Hamilton said he has no plans to retire until Africa is back on the F1 calendar. The last Formula 1 race held in Africa was the 1993 South African Grand Prix. The only other country to host an F1 race on the continent is Morocco.
“I don’t want to leave the sport without a Grand Prix, without racing there,” the seven-time F1 world champion declared. “I’m chasing them: When is it going to happen? They’re setting some dates, and I’m like, ‘Hey, I’m running out of time’. So I’m going to be here for a while until that happens, because that would be amazing, considering I’m half African,” he said.
Talking about his African heritage, Hamilton further said, “I’ve got family roots from a few different places over there, like Togo and Benin – I went to visit Benin last year – Senegal and Nigeria, and so it’s something I’m really proud of, that part of the world, I think it’s the most beautiful part of the world.”
The Ferrari driver recalled his long-standing efforts to return F1 to Africa. He said, “For the last six years, I think, maybe seven years, I’ve been fighting in the background to get a Grand Prix – it might actually be longer than that. So, sitting down with stakeholders and asking them questions like, why aren’t we in Africa? We’re on every other continent, why not in Africa? I know they’re really trying. I think they’ve been in a lot of different countries.”
Hamilton concluded, “The ones I’ve enjoyed (visiting) the most so far, I love Kenya, I don’t think we’re going to do any Grand Prix in Kenya, but Rwanda was particularly fantastic – two places where I thought I could stay. And South Africa. I think those are the places I think would potentially be good places for us to go.”
Originally reported by Namrata Ghosh Mandatory