After The Bell: A Swartland Grand Prix? Now isn’t that grand...

Over the last few years I have come to realise that some of the people I most enjoy spending time with are part of a tribe I did not grow up in.

They have their own rituals and sometimes their own language.

At times, even their own clothes.

What they don’t have is Sunday afternoons.

Those are given over to their devotions, communing with the high priests of their chosen group, along with the strange sounds and voices that are both instantly recognisable and entirely unfathomable.

I’ve tried to join them from time to time. To do what they do on a Sunday afternoon.

I must confess, despite my great love for this group of people, I don’t think I will ever be one of them.

I’m not sure what drives their addiction to Formula One, but it is absolutely in their blood. It is something they grew up with, that keeps them going from Sunday to Sunday.

I think my first memory of this sport was back in 1993. Everyone was talking about strange names, Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell, Ayrton Senna, the singularly named and clearly exotic Kyalami…

I was not there, of course.

I was, I think, on a scout camp doing something that felt immensely useful to somebody at the time.

Well, members of this tribe might soon have a new weapon with which to convert me.

This morning into my WhatsApp inbox came one of those enticingly headed messages that started with the words “Embargoed Until”.

It was a statement confirming that Neal Froneman’s effort to host a Grand Prix here (I still don’t understand that spelling) is now planning to host Africa’s first Formula One race in the Swartland area of the Western Cape.

I have to say, while I’m sure there were people more informed than I about these things, I did not see the idea of the “Swartland Formula One” coming. But the idea of hosting the thing in the Western Cape has all sorts of appeal.

It’s in the province that is rapidly becoming more and more different from the rest of the country, it’s becoming richer and, as hard as this may be to believe, in some places, safer.

Also, the Western Cape provincial government has been paying the salaries of extra Home Affairs immigration officers, to reduce the queues at Cape Town International Airport for foreign tourists.

I have become much closer to Kyalami since then. Twice I’ve gone around it at less-than-roaring speed on my bicycle.

But I have to accept the Western Cape is a much easier sell.

And this might well be the moment for it.

While the world gives the impression of being in the grip of a right-wing madman much of the time, I suspect, when things swing, they will swing back hard.

Which means the time period they’re talking about, in around 2031, could be just right. The world will be hungry for an African Grand Prix.

Lewis Hamilton, a High Priest my friends speak of with great reverence, may even feel the need to keep going until then.

I do wonder about the funding for all of this. None of it, and I really do mean none of it, will be cheap.

There will have to be a huge investment in a new track, new facilities and presumably all of this will need a toilet or two. But the people behind it reckon they can do it without any government money.

I think this matters.

We have so many things to spend money on – it’s impossible to really, hand on heart, claim we need this.

You really can’t ask South Africans to fund it. And you can imagine what would happen if we spent government money on the thing and it got mired in some kind of corruption scandal. The last thing we need is a Madlanga-style commission live on CNN.

If I were the people who run F1, I would try to have absolutely nothing to do with any government ever. The football World Cup (It’s not the “Fifa World Cup”, it doesn’t belong to them, it belongs to all of us) is a salutary reminder of what happens when organisers get too close to politicians.

The F1 people might not want to get too close to Gayton McKenzie or whoever is president then. This way, our sports minister and president and all the rest can be at the event, but it won’t depend on them.

Despite my professed lack of interest in this faith, I have to say, I hope this all happens. You can imagine all of the money and people that would flow into our country as a result.

And the jobs created through the construction phase.

But never mind all of that. It would be the best possible excuse for me to convince my wife that it is time she and I joined this tribe.

And went on a pilgrimage, with our friends, to the Swartland F1. DM