South Africa

Kyalami, Scheckter and the Braai

South Africa staged 23 Grands Prix between 1962 and 1993 and crowned a world champion, and its cooking gathers many communities around the fire.

The South African Grand Prix became a World Championship round in 1962 and was held 23 times up to 1993. The first three championship races ran at the Prince George Circuit between 1962 and 1965. From 1967 the race found its long term home at Kyalami, in Midrand, which staged the other 20, including the last two in 1992 and 1993. Jim Clark and Niki Lauda each won it three times, the best record in our data.

Jody Scheckter is the country's champion. He took the title in 1979 and won ten Grands Prix from 112 starts between 1972 and 1980. Tony Maggs finished as high as second in his 25 starts, and Ian Scheckter made 18 starts of his own. South Africa also fielded entrants of its own, among them Team Gunston and Scuderia Scribante.

South African food grows out of many communities. The Khoisan foraged hundreds of wild plants, rooibos among them, and Bantu speaking farmers brought cattle and grain, so that pap, a maize porridge, eaten with a rich stewed gravy is still an everyday meal. Beef has long been the most prized meat, and the braai, a gathering around an open fire where the meat is grilled, is a national habit. Biltong, dried and seasoned meat, is the favorite snack, which tells you a good deal about where the country's affections lie.

Later arrivals added their own layers. Cape Malay cooking, with roots in people brought from Bengal, Java and Malaysia, gave the country curries, sambals, pickled fish and bobotie, perhaps the closest thing to a national dish. Indian laborers who arrived in the nineteenth century shaped Durban's spicy curries and bunny chow, and around Johannesburg and Pretoria that curry filled loaf goes by the name kota. Afrikaans cooks favor potjiekos, slow stews simmered in cast iron pots set over the coals.

A taste of South Africa

Circuits

Drivers

Scroll to Top