Kyalami is one of the greatest tracks in history – Thank Frankel it’s Friday

It’s always seemed a shame to me that as the world re-engaged with South Africa after the collapse of apartheid and the election of Nelson Mandela as President in 1994, international motor racing stayed away. But the truth is there was nowhere left to race there because South Africa’s one world class circuit had been bulldozed.

I talk of course of Kyalami, and while you might point out the circuit did indeed hold two Grands Prix in 1992 and 1993, it was a very different place to the magnificent old original and substantially neutered. No one felt inclined to go back.

I wish I’d been to the old circuit, because it was clearly one of the true greats, almost unbelievably quick by the standards of today, not a straight-line slipstreamer like Monza, but a never-ending roller coaster of sweeps, curves, crests and dips. None other than Jody Scheckter once told me, ‘I used to shake so much going down through Jukskei I had to push my right leg down with my hand just so I could take it flat’ and that wasn’t in a F1 car, that was in a Renault 8.

The other thing I like about the old track is that unlike the fastest European circuits like Monza and Spa, Kyalami was not a killer circuit. In the 26 years it was a permanent racing facility across all races there were just six fatalities, which many seem a lot today, but back then for a place like this, it was a near miraculous safety record. Yes, Peter Revson died there testing a Shadow in 1974, but while the circuit’s unforgiving scenery undoubtedly sealed his fate, it was suspension failure that caused the crash. And Tom Pryce was killed by a teenager running across the track, for which the circuit design can hardly be blamed.

Anyway, after its false dawn in the early 1990s, the track fell into a state of disrepair until it was bought by the local Porsche importer Toby Venter in 2014, and by the time he was finished he’d spent 450 million Rand and completely rebuilt the circuit from top to bottom, widening, reprofiling and extending the track, knocking down over 40 buildings and creating many more in their place.

I visited in 2016 and could barely believe what I saw. A world class circuit by any measure, one that was once more a massive challenge but also hugely fun to drive. It wasn’t as nuts as the original Kyalami because no circuit like that would stand a chance of being licensed today, but Venter’s decision not to have acres of tarmac run-off before you reached a modern tecpro barrier, but a short trip across the grass to a wall of belted tyres fitted absolutely his vision of a circuit where mistakes still have consequences.

As a result Kyalami will almost certainly never hold a South African Grand Prix – at least without major change – but last month the once legendary Kyalami Nine Hours returned to the calendar after no fewer than 37 years away. And all accounts and despite dreadful weather, it was a triumph.

So much so that it has been announced that Kyalami will host a round of the World Endurance Championship during the 2020-21 season, bringing the circuit back to the very top level of sports car racing.

I couldn’t be happier. Having met Venter and his team when I visited in 2016, seen their passion for the place and its history and heard their plans for the future, it is wonderful to see it all come to fruition. The WEC round in on February 6^th, 2021 and I very much hope to be there to see it.

Images courtesy of Motorsport Images.