SPOILER ALERT - if you've taped the F1 race and haven't seen it yet, stop reading now...

As I type this, I'm just watching the post-race interviews following the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, after which Sebastian Vettel of Germany found himself leading the World Driving Championship for the first time in his career - when it counted, at the end of the season.

He pretty much had to win and the Spanish two-time champion Fernando Alonso in the Ferrari had to finish worse than fourth, which is what happened.

Alonso's team probably made a strategic error by bringing him in for the mandatory tire change too early, which put him back on the track behind Russia's Vitaly Petrov in the Number Two Renault, and German Nico Rosberg in the Mercedes.

I'm not sure why I don't like Alonso, other than he seems awfully arrogant. On the cool-off lap he was seen castigating Petrov for not letting him pass. But hey - Petrov's paid to race, and if Alonso couldn't get by, that's hardly Petrov's fault.

And if he did get past Petrov, Alonso would have had a heck of a lot harder time getting past Rosberg, who did a great job this year, generally out-qualifying and out-racing his seven-time World Champion teammate and countryman Michael Schumacher.

Speaking of which, I had a chance to chat briefly with Rosberg at a press event showcasing the Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG gullwing coupe just before last Christmas at this very race track.

I asked the son of former World Champion Kiki Rosberg if he was going to teach Schumi everything he needed to know.

He laughed, and said, "yes!"

No kidding.

And he did.

Few drivers' stock increased more in value this season than did Rosberg's.

That moment was brought back by seeing the YAS Marina circuit on TV today, winding right through the gorgeous YAS Hotel which is shaped like some ancient trilobite, its roof covered with LEDs which change colour from violet to blue to red.

Spectacular.

And all this - the hotel, the race track, the near-by Ferrari World Theme Park - was a desert just a few years ago.

At that Mercedes event, they didn't actually record our lap times. But taking a peek at my wristwatch, I'm pretty sure my lap times in the SLS AMG were very close to those set by Vettel in his Red Bull-Renault today.

Oh yeah; fit me up for a Formula One seat!

Did I mention we drove about a third of the F1 lap?

Comments

[Greg Wilkinson]

I'm sure Jim Kenzie isn't old enough to have seen Nico Rosberg's father race but Nico's father is Keke Rosberg, not Kiki Rosberg.
Jim, your error is not as funny as a local sports announcer who reported that the 1982 Formula One World Championship had been won by "Keek Rosenberg"

[Jim Kenzie]

Hi Greg:

You are so kind (or my photo really is misleading) but I saw Nico's father race in Formula Atlantic!

So you'd think I'd know how to spell his name.

Keke, of course. I sit corrected, not to mention shame-faced.

I may have been flashing back even farther to the Kiki race cars built in Canada during the 1960s.

I have a couple of other sports announcer 'folks passes' for you:

If you recall (if YOU'RE old enough to remember...) the first Molson Indy in Toronto held in (hold on, I better look THAT up...) 1986, there was quite a long full-course yellow when (if memory serves, which it clearly doesn't...) someone tried to drive THROUGH the Princes' Gates rather than turn right in front of them. At the time this was maybe the biggest single sports event in The Big Smoke, and again, if memory serves, CFRB was doing live play-by-play. They had conscripted every sportscaster they could find to cover the thing, including all the 'stick-and-ball' announcers who had probably never driven a stick-shift car, let alone seen a car race on TV, let alone ever attended one in person before. (One more time if memory serves) it was Bill Stephenson, the golden-throated Argos announcer, who was assigned to the Lakeshore Boulevard straight, and his comment during the slow-down was, "Even at these speeds the drivers are having trouble keeping the cars under control...".

If it was not Stephenson, or if it was and he was only joking, I apologize...

The second one I got second-hand, but a colleague recalls hearing on a US radio station the results of a Formula One race where the winner was a Canadian named (now, I'm trying to type this the way it was announced...) "GILL-ees Villa-new-EH-vah".

Please don't put me in that category!

Cheers,

Jim