New grand prix venues always attract big expectations.
Just as the mid-2000s 'long wide straight into tight hairpin/fast sweeps out the back/loads of run-off/nice paddock' formula started to get tedious, Valencia introduced the world championship's first new street track in two decades.
That was then totally blown out of the water by Singapore's Marina Bay - not only a (better) street track, but the venue for Formula 1's first ever night race.
The organisers of this weekend's inaugural Abu Dhabi Grand Prix have responded with an event that combines the best elements of all the recent newcomers and adds a few more twists too.
With a 5pm local time start, this is a 'sunset race', starting in daylight but set to finish under the lights.
Its waterfront location is intended to give the Yas Marina track a Monaco-esque feel, and some of the tight sections are deliberately reminiscent of a street circuit.
It also features a few fast sweeps, and what will become the longest straight in F1, with slow corners at the either end to encourage passing.
Perhaps the most striking quirk is the pit exit - which curves under the track in a narrow tunnel before releasing cars onto the circuit before turn three.
With the pit lane speed limit ending before the tunnel, drivers will be accelerating right through this section and it should be among the most challenging parts of the track.
The Abu Dhabi bosses - led by former Toyota team manager Richard Cregan - are also determined to let fans get close to the action.
An innovative barrier design is intended to reduce the need for endless run-off areas that distance the grandstands from the track, the on-site five-star hotel straddles the circuit itself, and the run-off at the end of the long straight disappears underneath the grandstand - which will be a unique sensation for the fans when drivers get it wrong there!
Although Abu Dhabi is another region without a motorsport heritage, its first GP has attracted a sell-out 50,000 crowd.
Like Singapore, the organisers hope to showcase their country to the rest of the world and draw in audiences from overseas, though with a full and varied season of racing planned at the track between GPs, they are clearly keen to develop a local fan base too.
Cregan and his colleagues really hoped the title race would still be ongoing when F1 reached Abu Dhabi, but instead Jenson Button and Brawn arrive as world champions, as for the first time since 2005 the championship has been sealed with a race to spare.
But that leaves an intriguing question to answer at Yas Marina: how much of Button's mid-season downturn was down to title pressure knawing at him rather than the car dropping off the pace?
If he again struggles in qualifying and then has to race hard for just a few points, we'll know the car was to blame.
If Button resumes his winning ways after his four-month drought, that will surely suggest he wilted under the weight of championship expectation.
It's always interesting to see how champions react when the pressure is off.
Michael Schumacher sometimes let errors slip in or was more generous to team-mates once his titles were clinched - but in other years he carried on winning and winning and winning.
Similarly Fernando Alonso showed how much he had held back while playing it safe to claim the 2005 championship by producing one of the greatest overtaking moves in history at the next race - passing Schumacher on the outside into Suzuka's 130R at 200mph+ - and then winning the season finale.
So Button might be - in Ross Brawn's words - "uncaged" in Abu Dhabi and drive accordingly, although with Red Bull eyeing a third straight win, Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber may well be the men to beat.
It could be a happy hunting ground for McLaren too, with KERS likely to prove handy on the long straights and the tight sections well suited to the car's nimble nature.
The last significant points battles are Vettel and Rubens Barrichello's fight for second, with Vettel two points ahead and particularly keen for history to record him as Button's closest challenger this year, and the McLaren versus Ferrari contest for third in the constructors' championship, which sees McLaren one point in front.
Both are more accustomed to fighting for bigger honours, but have admitted that there is a lot of pride at stake as the two old rivals bid to finish ahead of each other in what they hope will be a single year in the shadows before they resume normal service in 2010.
Abu Dhabi is also the end of a lot of eras, as after virtually no movement last winter, the 2009 silly season has turned the entry list inside out.
Nearly two thirds of the drivers on the Yas Marina grid are set to line up in different uniforms in 2010, with Alonso's second Renault swansong, Kimi Raikkonen's last race as a Ferrari driver, and potentially Barrichello and Nico Rosberg's farewells to Brawn and Williams respectively among the most significant goodbyes.
With so many new teams arriving next year, few drivers are expected to drop off the grid completely, although Giancarlo Fisichella has already chosen the Ferrari reserve seat for his future, so this weekend should be his final GP.
Sadly unless he can figure out the Ferrari at last, he probably won't bow out in style.
It's BMW's swansong too, regardless of whether new owner Qadbak gets an entry, and Robert Kubica's Brazil podium suggests that this team at least could leave on a high.
So just because the championship is settled, don't think there is nothing worth fighting for this weekend.
No one wants to spend the winter mulling over a poor 2009 finale, and there is a lot of kudos to winning the first race at a circuit that could become a classic.
Abu Dhabi won't see a title decider, but it should produce a suitably phenomenal postscript to what has been a remarkable season
No comments:
Post a Comment