Bernie Ecclestone has been in talks with the authorities in South Africa over Formula One (F1) holding a race in Cape Town in 2013.

In an interview on local radio, 567 Cape Talk, he said: As soon as we get a contract into place, which we’re working on now, then it will go quickly from there I hope.

This is very exciting news for South Africa. Not only would it give the whole country a huge boost through tourism but Cape Town itself would benefit massively from the influx of visitors from all over the world.

The hope is that it would have a similar impact on the country as the hugely successful football World Cup in 2010. The World Cup led to a massive infrastructure development across South Africa such as improved transport links and a huge building programme. It also led to a sense of optimism and excitement over investing in large African projects. This is hugely beneficial to Africa as a whole and hopefully will lead to many more large scale projects coming to Africa in future and bringing with them the prospect of jobs and improvements in infrastuctures and living standards.

There was also a large investment from FIFA which was specifically to set up coaching for underprivileged youngsters and for building better sporting facilities in their local areas. South Africa’s motorsports authorities are hoping to follow the South Africa World Cup’s successes by getting F1 to spend some of its enormous profits on development of the motorsport amongst South African underprivileged youngsters.