More than three years after Bernie Ecclestone first discussed the possibility of bringing grand prix racing to Abu Dhabi, the plush new Yas Marina Circuit opened for F1 business on Thursday to a host of rave reviews.
ITV.com/F1 columnist James Allen was one of many in the F1 fraternity to be impressed by what he saw, with the 3.45-mile track itself offering plenty of reasons to be optimistic about the quality of racing to be seen here in the years ahead.
Today was a day for getting to know a new venue, feeling the air, looking around at the facilities and talking to the drivers about what they think of the track.
I have to say first impressions are fairly positive. Some of the buildings are really good, especially the Yas Hotel which sits above the track. It looks spectacular at night and pretty good during the day too.
Unlike a lot of the new tracks, the pit building and the team offices are close together – the alleyway between them is more like an Arabian souk.
In Shanghai, and to a lesser extent Istanbul and Bahrain, everything is far too spaced out. Here the paddock has an intimacy about it, which is in contrast to the sheer scale of the project.
The track is on an island, as the name suggests, and you fly over it as you come in to land at Abu Dhabi airport. The first thing you see from the air is the Ferrari World theme park, which is enormous, big enough to house every Ferrari ever made, more or less.
The place is a huge statement, but beyond that it looks like a pretty decent track. I think a lot of people were worried that this would be another boring Tilkedrome, but there is far more to it than that.
The drivers are all talking about the off-camber corners, the kerbs on the outside and the lack of run-off areas in places.
They came here not expecting much of a challenge but they have had to revise their opinions.
Getting the set up right to work in the tighter infield sections as well as down the 1.2km straight – the longest in F1 – will not be easy.
The race will start at 5pm local time, when it is daylight, and will go into darkness. Today it went dark very quickly around 5.45pm and during the twilight part, around 5.20pm, as the lights come on looks really fantastic.
You can tell that a lot of money has been spent here; this is not Valencia nor is it Istanbul where you can see the cutting of the corners.
They’ve restricted themselves to 50,000 grandstand seats and have sold them all, which is a positive.
But even more encouraging from the point of view of the longevity of the event is that this is the biggest Paddock Club hospitality area of the season and it is entirely sold out, which hasn’t happened at many venues during this season of austerity.
This event feels like it will be a fixture of the calendar for many years to come; you cannot say about some of the other new venues.
Bernie Ecclestone gave the place the thumbs-up this afternoon. “It’s magic what they have done,” he said.
“I never thought it would be finished like this. No one is going to top this. Although I will be happy if someone does the same.”