For Abu Dhabi, the race has just begun

After precisely six hours, 34 minutes and three seconds on a balmy Sunday evening, Sebastian Vettel's Red Bull car hurtled down the pristine race track at the ultra-modern and futuristic Yas Marina circuit to win the Abu Dhabi GP.

The chequered flag came down in acknowledgement of Vettel's achievement. It also signalled the end of the Abu Dhabi GP, the 2009 Formula One racing season and the climax of an action-packed week where expectation and satisfaction met in perfect resonance.

As Vettel's car dinked, jerked, twisted and turned rhythmically on the track, with his celebratory post-race manoeuvres, the neon lights that littered the veil-like cover on the roof of the Yas Island Hotel twinkled on and off in a sort of celebratory dance in perfect step with the winner.

The synergy was not lost. There were two winners that evening. Vettel won his fourth grand prix of the season, finishing second in the driver's standings, while Abu Dhabi had just won over the hearts and minds of the fans and critics who came from virtually everywhere to be simply mesmerised at the promise that had been delivered right in the middle of a desert.

As I stood in the paddocks of the Yas Island circuit in heightened track temperatures, the look of awe and astonishment on people's faces was not lost.

Formula One aficionados can be blasé, since it is a playground for the multi-millionaires. But they wore a look of wonder while walking down the complex, barking into their custom-made cell phones with one eye on the lookout for their celebrity brethren. The others moored their yachts (shades of Monte Carlo with Hed Kandi music wafting out of its insides) with female companions struggling to maintain their balance on their Jimmy Choos, whilst clutching their mega-size Louis Vuitton handbags and a magnum of Cristal. Completing the moment was the occasional wail from a Formula One machine as it turned a corner, or hit the one-kilometre straight of the Yas Marina circuit.

The world had come to town.

The commitment to stage one of the finest grands prix ever was made two years ago. Abu Dhabi quietly made a bid and won the rights. In many ways, the pursuit had just begun. In hosting the race, Abu Dhabi has now set the bar so high that the rest of the venues will struggle to keep up next season.

In doing so, it appears that the UAE's capital has established its credentials as one of the Middle East's top sporting venues. The sky is now the limit.

But Abu Dhabi is not just competing for the reputation of hosting sporting events. Its ambition has been set notches higher. Sport is one of many mediums through which it is trying to carve out a reputation for itself, in an economic climate where the rest are warily tightening their purse strings. Sport is a means to an end. Achievements in investment, tourism, culture, trade, education and nuclear energy are set to be embossed into a future calling card. The focus is not on investing in mind-numbing ventures but on refined classy ones.

The transformation from desert venue to slick race track, surrounded by a marina full of bobbing yachts and an awe-inspiring hotel, has been quiet, but not without effort.

It isn't easy convincing Bernie Ecclestone, a shrewd businessman, that his F1 circus should come to town. Ecclestone controls his franchise in a tough, uncompromising manner. He is swayed by quality and the prospect of long-term growth and commitment. Abu Dhabi, however, locked in Ecclestone's interest early by revealing a blueprint of their ambitions and then simply went about the task of realising their dream — in two years.

Small wonder that when he later assessed the property at the Yas Marina — complete with glitzy hotel, waterfront, racing circuit and the Ferrari theme park — Ecclestone said to a journalist, "It will be exciting to leave off this season on a high note, based around a scene of magnificent achievement, as a reminder just how much of a thriller next season is shaping up to be".

Ecclestone guards his emotions well, cloaking them in a veil of steel, while his hawk-like businessman's eye constantly scours for the minutest of details that can make, or break, a venue's prospects.

In the case of Yas Marina, however, Ecclestone happily abandoned his cautiously pessimistic and caustic persona to gush, "Whatever demands I and other influences have made on the organisers, the designers, the builders and just about everybody else has been met with a fine level of expertise, thought and good manners".

It is Abu Dhabi's way of doing business. There may be boundaries, but there is no finish line to its ambitions. This is what I saw, while gazing out beyond the racing track on to the newly built causeway that connects Yas Island to Saadiyat Island. If the former is being positioned as the entertainment hub of Abu Dhabi's future plans, the latter — replete with the presence of the Guggenheim museum, the Louvre and the Warner Brothers theme park — is the cultural nucleus of the capital.

My gaze snapped back to where I currently was. I had looked briefly into the future, but my thoughts were fractured by the blood-curdling scream of 20 finely tuned engines as they revved up on their respective grids to tear out of their marks once the lights turned green.

It was 5pm and the drivers were under starter's orders. As the lights flickered from red, amber, to green the engines started wailing like banshees. The giant TV cameras then panned across the magnificent Yas Marina circuit and beamed it to the world.

For Abu Dhabi the race had just begun.