The Singapore GP was a great success and was even dubbed the “Monaco of the East”.

Next year when Abu Dhabi Grand Prix joins the F1 racing calender, none other than His Excellency Khaldoon Khalifa Al Mubarak has promised that Abu Dhabi GP will be “an event that will herald a new era in world motor racing”

The founding chairman of Abu Dhabi Motorsports Management is currently overseeing the building of the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix infrastructure.

The Yas Marina Circuit is said not just any circuit, but at the racing location of Yas Island, it will be a state of the art facility and promise to set new standards in the F1 circle

The track will be a 21 of turns anticlockwise and 3.4 mile circuit with the largest 50,000 grandstands seats in the world.

The circuit will be solar powered and the accommodation boasts of 500 room hotels, theme parks and a nearby marina.

Khaldoon Khalifa Al Mubarak

“The Singapore Grand Prix was incredible. They did an absolutely fantastic job, and the first night race was something special. The track, the visual impact of the city, the organisation, for everybody that was there it was fantastic, and we look at it as a challenge. They have done what we are looking forward to doing next year – setting a new benchmark – and we will do that.

There is no question in my mind that this is a track that will set that benchmark in motor-sport racing. It will be the future of motor racing, and we will be the cutting edge in everything we do in the sport. Like everything that Abu Dhabi does, we are going to do it right, it is going to be unique, it will set a new standard, and it will be long-term. That is what we are doing with the 2009 grand prix, and with the relationship we will have with Formula One. It is the start of what I feel will be a new era in racing, not just for the region, but for the world.

The entire island makes sense and is an integrated development. You don’t invest what we are investing in this island without being cost conscious and efficient. But I cannot emphasise enough the importance of this event for the country and the UAE. This is the epitome of sports, and being part of it, launching it next year for the country and putting Abu Dhabi out there for the global audience, is absolutely tremendous. It is like having the World Cup or the Olympics every year. It takes a lot of preparation, hard work, but we are going to be ready.

We are going to deliver to the world a statement in terms of how we can organise world-class events, delivering a standard that will make the world happy to come, to watch and enjoy. It has made a difference that we are building the track from scratch which has alowed a lot more creativity and flexibility in terms of how we designed it. I expect it to be a very fast track, a very competitive track with significantly more opportunities for overtaking than many of the tracks we have today.”