Phenomenal F1

The UAE is just about the size of Scotland, totally flat for the most part and pretty much deserted so looking at it another way, there's plenty of space.

There's also a lot of money too, all from oil which should last another 100 years or so.  With that money and time on your hands comes the urge to race camels and compete with falcons.  But that can only take up so much of your time, so add fast cars. Lots and lots of them.

So there's space, money, very cheap petrol and the love of very fast cars... oh yes and the fact that they need to outdo Sharjah with its cricket and Qatar with the 2022 World Cup, so when Bernie Ecclestone floated the notion of expanding the F1 calendar, Abu Dhabi jumped.

Hence the F1 complex on Yas Island (yet another man augmented island).

It is HUGE but then again it has to be to encompass all the crowds, media and all the other stuff that F1 demands these days.

The recent grand prix, the final one of the 2014 calendar, saw Lewis Hamilton win to take the driver's championship so everyone here is crazy about F1.

Some of the cars we weren't able to drive

We wanted to do a driving course (imagine City Slickers with very big and fast cars, not horses) but the driving school was taken over for the weekend for a private party so we were only able to watch those lucky, lucky people get into those fast cars with drivers that looked like The Stig from Top Gear and whizz around the circuit and not do it ourselves.

Grrr!