Kenya gets slot in Formula One Grand Prix calendar

Ferrari's German driver Sebastian Vettel (front) leads Mercedes' British driver Lewis Hamilton during the Formula One Australian Grand Prix in Melbourne on March 25, 2018. PHOTO | WILLIAM WEST | AFP

What you need to know:

  • The date of the Kenya Grand Prix is yet to be announced but already preparations are going ahead to determine the precise route the drivers will take.
  • Thus the Ferrari scuderia will have Italian drivers, the Renault powered French equipe will have French drivers and Mercedes will be raced by Germans.

  • Kenya Police are already getting into the spirit of the race and gearing up for the big day.

A huge boost for Kenyan tourism can be announced today with the disclosure that Nairobi is to be included on the international Formula One Grand Prix calendar as a street race circuit.

The date of the Kenya Grand Prix is yet to be announced but already preparations are going ahead to determine the precise route the drivers will take.

It is understood to include sections of Mombasa Road, the Thika Highway, Lang’ata Road up to the Galleria Mall and back to Chiromo Road via Mbagathi Way and on to the notorious giro at the Museum Hill flyover where cars have already been seen spinning off the road and into the swimming pool of a nearby hotel.

Viewers’ grandstands decked with bunting in the national colours are to be erected along each side of Kenyatta Avenue, although unfortunately the cars will not be going that way.

“It was one of the best places for grandstands with the trees providing scenic cover, so we have decided to place them there anywhere,” a city county spokesman explained.

RACE CALENDAR

It is hoped the route and all other details will be finalised in time for Nairobi to be included in the 2020 race calendar.

By then new rules coming into effect at the start of next year mean each team will be allowed to field only drivers of the same nationality as the team car.

Thus the Ferrari scuderia will have Italian drivers, the Renault powered French equipe will have French drivers and Mercedes will be raced by Germans.

The British McLaren outfit announced from its base in Saggy Bottom, Wiltshire, that starters are slated to include John “Johnny” ffitch-ffumbler, while lead driver for Mercedes has been penciled in as Helmut Grossfender.

The French team manager Marcel Deja-Vu reported for the second time that his driving duo Jean Paul Bidet and Claude Latrine have already been practising on wet tyres in anticipation of the race being held early in the season, during the Kenyan long rains.

PIG BREEDER

For Force India Bedi Bose and Hapi Singh Along are in the line up while heading the team for Finland will be Fartinen ‘Farti” Fartinenson and his teammate the former rally ace and champion pig breeder Hammi Porkinsensonsen.

Bad news for the Korean peace rapprochement is that the manager of the joint North and South team Park On-moon announced this week that his drivers

— Fat Chap-ill  and Far Too-sik — had been withdrawn for fear of contracting malaria.

Unfortunately, it is likely that Kenya, although hosting of the grand prix, will be unable to field a team because of the lack of a home built car.

Urgent attempts are being made, however, to resurrect the doomed Nyayo Automobile project, this time powered by a Kenya-assembled version of the unreliable seven cylinder, side valve, underhead camshaft, triple turbo steam-powered unit pioneered by British engineers  Rolls Canardly — slogan, “Rolls down hills; can hardly get up the other side.”

BIG DAY

Kenya Police are already getting into the spirit of the race and gearing up for the big day, with a spokesman who wished to remain anonymous telling the Nation that officers would be stationed at strategic points around the track, “to ensure the laws of Kenya are upheld.”

In particular, he said, drivers would be stopped if it was believed their tyres had insufficient tread, if their exhausts were not fitted with proper silencers and catalytic converters, if they exceeded emissions levels and if speed limits were not strictly observed.

On-the-spot fines, described as “reasonable” and “affordable” would be applied at the discretion of each officer, he said, and race drivers were advised, therefore, to carry sufficient cash in their overalls. Cheques and credit cards would not be accepted.

LEEWAY

However, he said that in view of the nature of the event certain leeway could be applied in the case of the speed limits, should an appropriately large  contribution to the Police Benevolent Fund, care of himself, be made in advance (cash or banker’s cheque only, please) by the race organisers.

Also eagerly awaiting the event were politicians of all parties some of whom, it is understood, were already preparing petitions to the Supreme Court to contest the outcome, assuming sufficient judges were available on the day.

Reigning world champion Lewis Hamilton was not available for comment.