Nomzamo Mbatha Takes Philipstown Wire Cars to Formula 1

South African actress and media personality Nomzamo Mbatha has met and interacted with Formula 1 star Lewis Hamilton on multiple occasions, most recently in July 2026 in Budapest, Hungary. This time, however, she arrived with a remarkable piece of South African creativity, wire cars made by young men from Philipstown.

In collaboration with Shell South Africa and Discovery Insure, Nomzamo Mbatha got to show Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc the wire cars from Philipstown and shine a light on the Philipstown Wire Car Grand Prix. To make the moment possible, she drove three hours to meet the team and young men of Philipstown Wire Car.

Speaking while showing Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc the wire cars, where they come from and their meaning, Nomzamo Mbatha said, “So, it was done by these young boys who live in a town called Philipstown. It’s a town where the socio-economic conditions are pretty dire and they make wire cars. They also host their own wire car Grand Prix every September. So you have these young boys who have these wire cars that they have made and they race on the streets of Philipstown and this is the first ever Formula One car that’s ever been made.”

The reaction from the Formula 1 stars was immediate, with Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc both loving the wire cars. They said, “That’s amazing.”

For Mbatha, the moment was about much more than simply presenting handmade cars to two of the biggest names in Formula 1. It was about taking the creativity, talent and determination of young people from a remote South African town onto one of the world’s biggest sporting stages.

Nomzamo Mbatha showed appreciation for the opportunity, saying, “With very little, they have created something extraordinary. A reminder that ingenuity is not a privilege of the privileged. It belongs to every community with imagination, talent and grit, even in one of the most remote places in South Africa.

Shell and Discovery Insure gave me one very specific task: to take these wire cars from Philipstown to Budapest and into the hands of Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc, bringing a piece of this initiative to the global F1 stage.

I left Philipstown with a promise to deliver. And I did.

But I soon realised I wasn’t really delivering something. I was simply the bridge. The real delivery had already happened in the hands of these young men, who have been perfecting their craft long before the world got to see it.”