Laying the course for a grand F1 finale

Dubai: ‘A global reach with a local touch', states the company policy. However, for Melwyn D'Cunha and Andrew Wayira, it has been more of a fulfilment of this vision and going even beyond it as they rose to the challenge of laying out the newest racetrack at the Yas Marina Circuit (YMC) on the outskirts of Abu Dhabi.

"Yes, it was a challenge all along. But it was something that we were always confident about and now when we think about it, we think we went through with the entire process with relative ease," D'Cunha told Gulf News.

D'Cunha is the regional bitumen manager and Andrew Wayira is the regional bitumen technical manager with Shell Bitumen — the ones solely responsible for laying out the racetrack at the YMC.

The asphalt work on the YMC racetrack began in August 2008 and took nearly one year to complete. The circuit covers a stretch of nearly 5.6 kilometres and is situated on the 2,550 hectare natural island called Yas Marina.

For both, this was their first major job of this kind. And, perhaps, one of the bigger challenges lay in meeting the strict August deadline.

"We've done some bigger jobs together as a team. It was always a tussle with time, and besides, we had to ensure we carried out the job by following the correct process," D'Cunha admitted.

"But laying out a racetrack does not happen every day so we were quite fortunate to be doing this for its sheer uniqueness," he said.

The entire process is pretty complex. All the bitumen is prepared and mixed at Shell Bitumen's plant in Jebel Ali at a steady temperature range of 160 to 175 degrees centigrade.

The bitumen leaves the plant in specially insulated trucks that are capable of carrying 35-40 tonnes each at a temperature hovering around 170 degrees, and by the time the load arrives on site the drop in temperature is negligible.

"The biggest aspect here is the coordination part with the on-site contractor. The production, transportation, mixing and application all has to be done within a limited time-frame. And then there are the health and safety aspects and a rigid set of environment standards," D'Cunha stated.

Shell Bitumen has carried out much bigger jobs of this nature in the region. So what makes the YMC so special?

"It is really difficult to compare the work done at Yas Marina and the other jobs such as the airports in Abu Dhabi, Dubai and Jebel Ali. Both tasks are similar in technicality and both are equally challenging, but the performance parameters for both [racetracks and airports] are completely different as each has unique requirements of their own," he observed.

And yet the racetrack on Yas Island is special. "The room for risk while laying out racetrack like this is next to zero. At no time can we compromise on safety as it is the drivers and the teams that are of paramount importance here," D'Cunha added.