Now the V8 Supercars rumble in

Having landed the finale of the Formula One season, Yas Marina Circuit is now to play host to an even more aggressive type of motor sport.

The V8 Supercars are 5.0-litre Australian-built Ford Falcons and Holden Commodores, with the latter similar to Chevrolet Luminas.

They are big, loud, thirsty and aggressive - and they are bringing their muscle to Abu Dhabi. Australia's V8 Supercar racing will roar into the capital when the new Yas Marina Circuit hosts the first round of the 2010 V8 Supercars championship, from February 18 to 20. The event will carry on the slip stream of the Formula One Grand Prix season finale, which takes place on November 1.

The V8 Supercar format, which features powerful street cars, is one of Australia's largest sporting attractions, drawing as many as 300,000 fans over a weekend, and its arrival in Abu Dhabi makes it the second international motoring competition to visit the emirate. The deal to host next year's race, signed between Abu Dhabi Motorsport Management and V8 Supercars Australia, includes season-opening Supercar races in 2011 and 2012.

A week after their UAE clash, the V8 Supercars will race at the Bahrain International Circuit, which has hosted them three times in recent years. Martin Whitaker, the chief executive of the Bahrain circuit, believes racing fans in the Gulf have plenty to look forward to. What sets V8 Supercar racing apart from Formula One is that "it's a much more combative grid, because the cars spend a lot of time leaning on each other," he said. "You will get five or six cars going into each corner at the same time. There's a lot more bodily contact. There are a lot more accidents."

And the sound is also different. "Formula One cars have a very high-pitched, raucous scream, but these have a more traditional V8 rumble," Mr Whitaker said. The V8 Supercars are 5.0-litre Australian-built Ford Falcons and Holden Commodores, the latter being similar to the Chevrolet Luminas common on UAE roads. Each car is said to cost about 600,000 Australian dollars (Dh1.9 million). This year, 29 drivers from 18 teams have competed in the series.

Next year's championship has 16 scheduled race weekends, including endurance races and shorter, sprint contests. Cole Hitchcock, a spokesman for the series, described V8 Supercar racing as "very, very hard and very, very aggressive". On long straights, the cars can reach speeds of 300kph, and in Bahrain they typically go up to about 250kph. "They bang panels, and it's extremely close racing," he said. "It's what we call bump and grind."

Most of the drivers are Australian, although there are several from New Zealand, which also hosts races in the championship series. International television coverage has helped to raise the popularity of V8 Supercars outside the series' base in Australia and New Zealand. Such is the championship's growing reputation that the 1997 Formula One world champion Jacques Villeneuve came close to joining the series this year.

The former 500cc motorcycle champion Wayne Gardner competed in the championship for several years, displaying a penchant for crashing that earned him the nickname "Captain Chaos". "They are very different cars to any other touring car championship, and a lot of international drivers find it quite difficult," Mr Hitchcock said. "They are very big, very bulky, very powerful cars and the only cars that are in some way similar are Nascars," he said, referring to the American race series.

V8 Supercars emerged in 1997 from the decades-old Australian Touring Car Championship, which has an illustrious five-decade history that saw the 1980 F1 world champion Alan Jones take part for a number of seasons. Mr Whitaker said staging V8 Supercar races on successive weekends in the UAE and Bahrain would encourage Australians to fly to the Gulf to see both events, especially as they were the first two race meetings of the championship season.

"I think a lot of people will be attracted to come to two races who might not be attracted to one race," he said. "I think it will be one of those double-header weekends that will become ingrained in Middle East motorsport folklore in years to come." In Bahrain, crowds for the V8 Supercars race weekend have been more modest than in Australia, peaking at 16,600 last year. "That's nothing like what they get in Australia, but it's a pretty good crowd in the Middle East, where motorsport in general is in its infancy," Mr Whitaker said.

A major appeal of the V8 Supercars series, he said, was the accessibility of drivers and facilities, with spectators able to wander near the pit area with a freedom they would not have at a Grand Prix meeting. "There's more opportunity to get up close and meet the drivers and teams. The drivers are more approachable," he said. A spokesman for the UAE-based yallaf1.com website predicted that popularising the V8 Supercars series in the UAE would not prove difficult "because these cars are available in dealerships".

"It's Ford versus General Motors, and that appeals to people," he said. "They can identify with these cars because they are pretty much souped-up road cars. "F1 is the pinnacle and the glamour, but no one is ever going to be able to drive an F1 car; but these are cars you can see driving on the roads." Richard Cregan, the chief executive of Abu Dhabi Motorsport Management, said in a statement that bringing the V8 Supercars to Yas Marina was part of a plan to turn the circuit into a "regional and international centre of motorsport excellence". Accordingly, the race weekend would have a festival atmosphere, he said.

"These are cars that we all see on the streets of Abu Dhabi, every day. "On the track, spectators and viewers will witness some of the most sensational wheel-to-wheel racing imaginable." Similar cars to the Holden Commodores in the V8 Supercars championship will also race in Abu Dhabi on the October 30 to November 1 Grand Prix weekend as part of the Chevrolet Supercars Middle East Challenge. [e-mail]