Atlassian Williams F1 Team driver Alex Albon will visit South Africa at the end of July, in partnership with Super Group brands Betway and Jackpot City.
It will mark the first time an active Williams driver has returned to the country since Alain Prost’s 1993 win at Kyalami.
The visit caps a month-long roadshow across Cape Town, Durban and Johannesburg, during which the Williams FW48 show model toured shopping centres nationwide, giving fans the chance to see a Formula 1 car up close and enter a competition to win a VIP experience with Albon in person.
The Williams trip is run alongside partners Super Group, whose brands Betway and Jackpot City have backed the roadshow throughout.
“Formula 1 has an incredibly passionate following in South Africa, and we are proud to help bring the sport closer to fans through our partnership with Atlassian Williams F1 Team,” said Neal Menashe, Chief Executive Officer of Super Group.
“Seeing the excitement generated by the roadshow across the country has been remarkable, and Alex’s visit is a fitting culmination of that journey.”
The visit lands at a genuinely significant moment for South African motorsport.
The country’s cabinet approved a bid to return Kyalami to the F1 calendar in September 2025, fully funded by the private sector, targeting a return in 2027 on an initial three-year deal through 2029.
The FIA has already approved plans to upgrade the circuit to Grade 1 standard, the certification required to host a world championship round, with work expected to finish next year.
The bid is not yet secured, with Kyalami circuit owner Toby Venter claiming the government still needs to formally engage F1’s commercial side to convert cabinet approval into an actual race deal, something that, as of his most recent comments, had not yet happened.
Formula 1 has an incredibly passionate following in South Africa, and we are proud to help bring the sport closer to fans through our partnership with Atlassian Williams F1 Team.
Neal Menashe
South Africa also faces genuine competition for a calendar slot, with Turkey and Portugal returning and both Rwanda and Morocco pursuing bids of their own to become the first African host of the modern era.
“I’ve always wanted to go to South Africa – it’s a beautiful country, and South African fans are some of the most passionate in motorsport,” Albon said.
“Bringing F1 to the fans, and doing things a bit differently, is what the Atlassian Williams F1 Team is all about, so this is exactly the kind of moment we love being part of.”
Williams framed Albon’s appearance as part of a wider strategy rather than a one-off visit tied to the bid.
The team’s Fan Zones in race cities including Melbourne, Austin and Las Vegas have welcomed more than 340,000 fans over the past two years, reflecting what the team describes as a mission to bring F1 beyond the circuit itself, given only 1 per cent of fans worldwide will ever attend a race in person.
Albon is no stranger to this kind of role beyond the cockpit. The Thai-British driver, who races under Thailand’s flag, has spent much of the past two years personally lobbying on behalf of his own country’s F1 ambitions.
He met former Thai Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra on multiple occasions to support Bangkok’s own bid for a 2028 race.
That project, backed by a cabinet-approved $1.2 billion budget, is further along financially than South Africa’s, with a proposed circuit design already revealed, though it has run into domestic political resistance that leaves its outcome less certain than the numbers alone suggest.
Between the two, Albon now finds himself an unusually active advocate for expanding F1’s map in two directions at once, fronting a commercial fan activation in one bidding nation while personally lobbying government leaders in his own.
