Tuesday September 28th, 1999

by Michele Lupini

Rumors doing the rounds in the British press suggest that the Brands Hatch Leisure group is planning to take the British Grand Prix out of Europe if it could not host the race at Brands Hatch. The stories were based on BHL's Nicola Foulston's comments on having a "bigger fish to fry" when BHL scrapped plans to buy the Silverstone track after the British Racing Driver's Club voted against the takeover bid.

Foulston has the contract for the British GP, which she intends to take to Brands. Much work is needed, however, to get Brands Hatch up to F1 standard, so Foulston attempted to buy Silverstone - before the BRDC vote.

BHL is known to be working on an overseas Formula One project, the identity of which Foulston refuses to comment on until after negotiations are complete. This fact was allegedly misconstrued by the press to mean that BHL would use its contract to run a Grand Prix outside the UK.

That story was dismissed by Foulston - although she has admitted that the as yet-unnamed overseas race is allied to a continued British Grand Prix under the BHL flag.

But rumors that were doing the rounds in South Africa earlier in the year that BHL was negotiating to purchase the Kyalami circuit re-surfaced again recently, making the possibility of that deal, and the return of the South African Grand Prix under the BHL banner, seem very realistic.

Kyalami is licensed and ready for F1, with testing having taken place there in February this year and scheduled again for 2000. Furthermore, after a meeting with then-SA President Nelson Mandela in Johannesburg last year, The FIA’s Bernie Ecclestone confirmed that a South African GP was a reality "on or before 2001"

With Foulston having confirmed her negotiations on an "overseas F1 project" dovetailing with rumors from totally separate sources in SA, it appears increasingly likely that a South African Grand Prix may well be in the offing at Kyalami in the near future