Cape Town bids for date

Officials have approved a site near Cape Town's international airport for a new circuit to be built, and a grand prix could be hosted there as soon as 2007 according to prime movers behind the project.

"Our consortium hopes to submit a bid for the 2007-2014 grand prix series to be hosted by South Africa," said David Gant of Parallel Media South Africa. "Preliminary discussions have been held with potential stakeholders, including major South African and international companies. There is clearly a lot of interest, but the private sector wants to see government buy in."

The consortium also includes Denis Worrall of Omega Investment Research, Sello Rasethaba of The OrlyFunt Consortium and BKS Consulting Engineers.

"With more than 4 billion TV viewers and an estimated 25,000 overseas visitors at the event itself, it goes without saying that the socio-economic and global marketing benefits for our country will be immense," said Worrall. "We estimate the direct annual economic impact on our economy to be over 1 billion rand [£86.8million] per year."

The Kyalami circuit hosted the South African Grand Prix from 1967-'85 and from '92-'93.