Baby you can drive my car...

After what had seemed like an age since we booked the tickets, the Formula 1 finally rolled into Abu Dhabi last weekend.  A few days beforehand, a sign went up in my building stating that the new McLaren garage downstairs would be opening, and that the event would be attended by 'government officials, dignitaries and VIP guests'.  Speculation on quite who would be attending started.  Would it be an F1 driver?  Would it be Sheikh Mohammed?!  That evening we bagged ourselves a prime spot outside at Arz Lebanon, just along from the showroom.  A wide black carpet had been stretched out along the front of the building.  A police car arrived, PR people buzzed about looking frantic for a while, and then just as our main courses were served, Lewis Hamilton pulled up in a brand new McLaren MP4-12C.


He was rushed into the showroom and up onto a small stage for a bit of a Q&A session while we peered in from outside.  He's fairly diminutive in stature so we couldn't see him all that well - not until the rest of my group blagged their way past the door girls (yes, door girls...) and into the showroom.  I'd gone back to finish my dinner at his point, and on finding that they'd all made it inside, was somewhat dismayed to find that I'd missed my opportunity to shake Lewis' hand.  By the time I made it back there, he'd been whisked into the car park and into his waiting limousine.  Shouldn't have listened to my stomach...

Back to the weekend then.  We headed down to Yas Island on Saturday afternoon and arrived just in time to see the last five minutes of the final practice before qualifying.  Also the only five minutes that we'd watch without earplugs - the sound was just deafening.  We had a great spot at the very front of the south stand of the circuit, at the end of a long fast curve with a quick left-right-left, so had a fantastic view of the cars as they had to slow considerably to make it round without spinning out.

The Porsche races and F1 qualifying, where Lewis just missing out on pole, kept us entertained until the evening rolled round.  After watching some of The Cult and Incubus gigs at Yas Arena, we headed into Abu Dhabi city to see what it had to offer by way of a night out.  Not a lot as it happens.  It was a Saturday evening and therefore a school night, but even so there was hardly anyone around.  You'd think with F1 in town there would be a few people out and about...  Having enjoyed many a night in Rock Bottoms Dubai, we headed to it's namesake in the capital.  The same over priced drinks, dodgy band and smoky atmosphere were all present, but any actual punters out to have a good time were mysteriously absent.  Still we gave it a good crack before leaving to spend about an hour and a half driving round Abu Dhabi in various taxis trying to find somewhere open offering food - with Pizza Hut, Burger King and KFC all closed, we finally struck gold with McDonalds.  (The second Big Mac of the day).

After a predictably slow start the next morning, we dragged ourselves back to Yas for the race itself.  It was an awesome sight to watch as 24 drivers sped around the track 55 times - not that they all made it to the finish of course.  The biggest cheer of the day greeted the news that the Red Bull car that had spun off on the first lap was indeed that of Sebastian Vettel.  His tyre flew off into the air as he passed us in the south stand.

There wasn't a huge amount of action along our stretch - no major incidents or wipeouts - and we had to keep taking photos of the video screen and zooming in on the photo to keep track of who was winning, but it was a great experience to watch.  Also a fantastic day as a British expat there as our mate Lewis and his mate Jenson took first and third places - brilliant to hear the national anthem ring out around the circuit.

After the race we headed over to Yas Arena again for something I'd been possibly more excited about than the race itself - Paul McCartney closing the series of gigs that Abu Dhabi has hosted over the past couple of weeks.  He did not disappoint.  Over nearly three hours he played 35 songs including two encores of Beatles, Wings and some of his newer stuff to a huge audience gathered in the surrounds of Ferrari World.  It was incredible - one of the best gigs I've ever seen.

I've never been the biggest of Beatles fans, but hearing those songs live and some of the tales he told in between was just amazing.  The crowd were absolutely loving it, especially Macca's attempts at speaking Arabic ('Shukran Abu Dhabi!').  The finale of Live and Let Die, where it appeared that the entire stage was imploding, was particularly spectacular.  What a legend.

Despite his age, McCartney kept going til nearly midnight - fine for him with his no doubt plush Yas Island hotel, but not so great for us with a long drive back to Dubai ahead.  After stopping for food on the way home (Burger King - burger number 3 of the weekend, 4 for some of us...), we finally got back around 2:30am.  Needless to say I slept during the entire flight on my way to Qatar the next morning...