And so we come to the last race of the season, F1's first Day/Night race at a 'street' circuit that has some very unstreety characteristics. As somebody tagged on to a PF1 story the other day - Abu Dhabi probably wanted a night race, but they didn't want to be F1's second anything, they wanted to be first.
So it's the first Day/Night race at a track that can boast the longest straight in F1 at 1.2 kilometres. And that's not the only star feature - there's some run-off area at the end of that straight that go UNDER a grandstand,plus some new high-tec impact absorbing barriers which mean that the crowd can get close to the action.
It also has the only underground pitlane exit. After leaving the pits, the drivers descend into a tunnel that turns 90 degrees left and runs underneath the track after Turn 1. Now in the 11 years I've been reporting on F1, it always seems that the one thing that new circuits fail to get right first time is either the pitlane entry or the pitlane exit. So that should be fun.
We don't really care that "every grandstand is covered" - the seated capacity for the circuit is a mere 50,000. That's less than Manchester United, Arsenal or Newcastle can hold for a week-in, week-out football game. And it's the middle-east for goodness sake, if it were the rain-favoured Suzuka, Spa, Silverstone or Mount Fuji that might be a blessing. Or if the race took place under the fierce midday sun it would be a relief. But nobody's going to die of heat-stroke during a day/night race.
A spanking new circuit will be a level playing field for all the drivers, of course, and so Friday and Saturday will be fascinating to see who are the fast learners in the teams and who are the Ozzy Osbournes.
Jenson Button will at last be let off the leash having had to safeguard his World Championship ambitions since the end of the Australian GP in Melbourne. Rubens Barrichello has outqualified him 9-7 so far this season and though Jenson can't square it, he can get close.
The major pitlane battles - apart from the pride of winning the first Abu Dhabi grand prix (F1's first day/night race) - are between McLaren and Ferrari for 3rd place and between Williams, BMW and Renault as to who'll pick up that coveted 6th place in the Constructors' title race.
Whereas McLaren have two drivers capable of picking up points, Ferrari still only have Raikkonen who is likely to figure in the top ten. Unusually, going into the last race of the season, we don't know where Raikkonen will be driving next year, or who will be in the second McLaren seat, or who's going to be in the Williams
We don't know who'll be sitting in the Toyota seats either, but Kamui Kobayashi has given himself a good start with a mix of good qualifying and unnecessary combativeness...particularly towards the company's other favourite son Kazuki Nakajima in Brazil.
Kobayashi, like Romain Grosjean, has it within himself to make the most almightly cock-up out on track. Whereas rookie drivers like Nakajima, Buemi and Alguersuari have concentrated on keeping their cars on the road, both Grosjean and Kobayashi have risked a lot more and looked a lot closer to the edge. Let's hope it's not in that brand new tunnel, eh.
There will be quite a few farewells this weekend, so in many respects it's probably a good thing that we've got the two titles out of the way. Kimi is saying goodbye to Ferrari, the team that he said he wanted to end his career driving for. Giancarlo Fisichella might be gone from F1 for good. Fernando Alonso is leaving Renault again. Robert Kubica will be saying adieu (or whatever the Polish is for it) to BMW Sauber. Rubens is probably saying farewell to Brawn. Nico Rosberg will be saying goodbye to Williams - Nakajima will be saying au revoir also. And Jarno Trulli will be saying ciao to Toyota. Forget the air-conditioned garages we're going to need a truckload of man-size tissues this weekend.
Given the cars' all-round lack of predictability this season, combined with a new track and a circuit that has a very long straight and a lot of fiddly bits (like Indy) it's anyone's guess as to who comes out on top. But on novelty value alone it'll be worth watching.
All 50,000 grandstand seats have been sold for Sunday's race of 55 laps round the 5.55 kilometre track. With that size of crowd it will no doubt be 2055 before the race begins to break even. Abu Dhabi isn't just F1's first Day/Night race, it's also F1's first 'boutique' grand prix.
Andrew Davies
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