Abu Dhabi, the final dance in F1’s long and legendary calendar. With my last Formula 1 experience being 2012 Silverstone in the BRDC it’s safe to say a return visit to the sport was well overdue. So after 12 long years of wishing I could go back we packed our bags and headed for Dubai.

Firstly I’d like to touch on Dubai. IF you haven’t been, go, it might just be one of the most incredible places to visit! Everywhere you look there is a supercar or preposterously large architectural project going on. The desert is one of the most breathtaking and fascinating places I have visited & will 100% be returning to as soon as my bank account allows it.

We actually chose to stay in Dubai as there was plenty to check off on our tourism list, personal highlights include:

Dune Bashing & Buggies
The Sail
Beefbar (the most incredible Wagyu Steak)

The downside to staying in Dubai was that it was 2 hours from our hotel to the track. Let’s drive we thought? After seeing the chaos involved in driving on our first couple of days we decided to seek a private car courtesy of our hotel, for 2 days it cost us £125 this was highly recommended as they picked us up from 5 minutes down the road & after a long day at the track we could just relax in the car.

As for the actual tickets we purchased them from F1’s official website and paid £635 each for a Saturday and Sunday in the North Grandstand. We felt this gave the best view of the cars at full speed down the hill into the hairpin & then flat-out down the straight. What we didn’t appreciate is that this price included entry into the music festival & a day pass for Ferrari world! Both of which have their own unique stories….

Ferrari World might just be one of the most mind boggling places we have been. There were no queues to get in, no one around & yet for some of the rides there was a 2 hour queue! We only managed to get on one ride which was the Fiorano GT Challenge. We didn’t expect much as unfortunately Formula Rossa was closed but, wow, we have experienced some fast roller coasters but this was phenomenally fast, there was no queue for this ride & I don’t really understand why not? It was exhilarating! We then decided to test our skills at the pitstop challenge, having watched from the crowd we assumed we had it sussed. In reality, we were terrible. My dad practically threw the wheel at me resulting in me crumbling on the floor with a wheel on top of me. Safe to say Ferrari will not be recruiting us on their pit crew anytime soon.

Upon arriving to the circuit (with the imprint of a wheel on my chest) we were yet again met with absolutely zero queues. The bars and restaurants were void of all life, we assumed everyone was watching the F2 feature race so we followed our petrol head instincts and headed to our seats to soak up the atmosphere. However, there was no one in the grandstand either! After watching the nail bitingly intense race we collected our wristbands for none other than Eminem & headed for some lunch.

Now, this is my biggest piece of advice. Collect these wristbands as soon as you can. It very quickly became apparent that more people were there to see Eminem rather than my 20 heroes out on track. So many people were there to see him that they somehow “ran out of wristbands” so people were begging us to give them ours. We agreed as neither of us are Eminem fans, although I mistakenly turned down an offer of 1,000 AED (£200) as I misheard the offer (yes I am still kicking myself now)

Before we knew it. Race day was upon us. It had been 4,900 days since my last fix of live F1 that’s 275 races! It’s safe to say I was beyond excited, the atmosphere was to tense you could cut it with a knife, who would take the Constructors Championship? Will Mclaren best Ferrari? Well, we all know the result but as anyone who has been to a race will know you do spend a lot of time confused. You never really know who has boxed, who has been lapped or who is where! One thing was for sure though. Lando was in a league of his own. Domination from start to finish, the perfect sunset on another remarkable season of Formula 1.

Abu Dhabi 2024 grand prix