Kyalami, a Home North of Johannesburg

South Africa's great Grand Prix circuit north of Johannesburg was fast and sweeping for two decades, then rebuilt and twisting for its last two championship visits.

Kyalami means my home, from the Zulu khaya lami, and the circuit has watched a whole suburb grow up around it in Midrand, just north of Johannesburg. Harry Pierce and Dick Bremner cleared and shaped the original course with the help of friends and laborers, and the Kyalami 9 Hours opened it on the 4th of November 1961.

The first layout ran clockwise and was built for speed. A long main straight fell downhill into Crowthorne Corner, named for a nearby hotel, then came Barbecue Bend, the fast Jukskei Sweep, named for the river close by, and Sunset Bend, which earned its name the way you would expect, with drivers often staring straight into the evening sun. Clubhouse Bend and the Esses led to a steep climb and the Leeukop hairpin, which returned the cars to the straight, broken only by a gentle kink.

The South African Grand Prix joined the championship at Kyalami in 1967, when Pedro Rodríguez won for Cooper, and the circuit held 20 championship rounds through 1993. Jody Scheckter won in 1975, the only South African to win his home Grand Prix, and Niki Lauda won three times, more than anyone. The 1977 race is remembered for the accident that killed the driver Tom Pryce and the marshal Frederick Jansen van Vuuren. In 1982 the weekend began with a drivers' strike over new superlicence terms, and political sanctions against apartheid ended the event after 1985.

A commercial development brought a rebuild in 1989. Leeukop, the kink, Crowthorne and Barbecue Bend all vanished, and one of the fastest tracks on the calendar became a narrow, twisting one. Formula 1 returned for 1992 and 1993, won by Nigel Mansell and then Alain Prost, until the promoter's bankruptcy ended the revival.

In 2014 Toby Venter, who owns Porsche South Africa, bought the circuit at auction and invested heavily to win it FIA Grade 2 status, and in 2019 the Kyalami 9 Hours returned to the international calendar, the race that had opened the place in 1961 once more welcoming the world home.

Every Grand Prix here

• 1993 South African Grand Prix
• 1992 South African Grand Prix
• 1985 South African Grand Prix
• 1984 South African Grand Prix
• 1983 South African Grand Prix
• 1982 South African Grand Prix
• 1980 South African Grand Prix
• 1979 South African Grand Prix
• 1978 South African Grand Prix
• 1977 South African Grand Prix
• 1976 South African Grand Prix
• 1975 South African Grand Prix
• 1974 South African Grand Prix
• 1973 South African Grand Prix
• 1972 South African Grand Prix
• 1971 South African Grand Prix
• 1970 South African Grand Prix
• 1969 South African Grand Prix
• 1968 South African Grand Prix
• 1967 South African Grand Prix