After a good showing at Dubai Circuit of the Emirates, the racing season moves on to UAE and the Yas Marina Circuit. I wasn’t sure what to expect from the track, never even having glanced it, but was looking forward to giving it a go.
Yas Marina is an odd racetrack to my eye. It appears to be several different turns stuck together haphazardly to two or three straights of varying lengths. Some racetracks are pleasing to the eye just looking at the track map. Road America and Sebring come to mind. But Yas Marina looks cobbled together, disjointed. That doesn’t mean it won’t race well, but at first blush, it looks a little strange.
I haven’t had much time to practice this past week, so I’m going to go into the race with less seat time on the track than I am used to. Even so, the practice sessions have gone pretty well. I’ve gotten use to the track (It doesn’t feel quite as strange to drive the track as it does when viewing the map), and I’ve been fairly competitive. We’ll see how it goes.
Here’s what Wikipedia has to say about Yas Marina:
The twenty-one corners twist through Yas Island off the Abu Dhabi coast, passing by the marina and through the Yas Hotel Abu Dhabi designed by New York-based architects Hani Rashid and Lise Anne Couture of Asymptote Architecture with a striking facade lighting design by Rogier van der Heide, and winding its way through several long straights and tight corners.
The marina-based development includes a theme park, a water park, as well as residential areas, hotels and beaches.
The circuit has five grandstand areas (Main Grandstand, West Grandstand, North Grandstand, South Grandstand and Marina Grandstand (aka Support)) and part of its pit lane exit runs underneath the track. It also houses a team building behind the pit building, Media Center, Dragster Track and VIP Tower. Additionally, one of the run-off areas runs underneath the West grandstand.
After the first practice sessions at the 2009 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, the circuit was welcomed by the drivers, with Nico Rosberg commenting that every corner was ‘unique’, while double World Champion Fernando Alonso echoed his sentiments, stating that it was enjoyable because there was always something to do. Force India’s Adrian Sutil rated the circuit as being better than Formula One’s other night race in Singapore as he felt there was too much light at Marina Bay.
Not all of the drivers were complimentary, with Giancarlo Fisichella expressing a particular dislike of the pit exit, which dips under the main circuit by way of a tunnel. Although the pit exit remained free of incidents for the early practice sessions, Fisichella claimed that it was both very difficult and dangerous. Kimi Räikkönen notoriously gave his thoughts on the circuit, stating “the first few turns are quite good, but the rest of it is shit”.
Here what the full course at Yas Marina looks like:
