The capital of the United Arab Emirates, Abu Dhabi, has made an even greater impression on the FIA World Rally Championship this weekend, as it took to the asphalt shakedown stage of this weekend’s Rally Ireland. Not only is it hoping to celebrate the strengthening of its partner BP-Ford World Rally Team’s position in both the Manufacturers’ and Drivers’ championships, the penultimate round of the 2007 season also sees the debut of the Abu Dhabi Oasis unit in the service park.

The Abu Dhabi Oasis is designed to embody the emirate’s new status of Official Destination Partner to the WRC, announced last week. A range of initiatives are planned, to increase awareness of Abu Dhabi as a world-class destination for leisure, culture and business within the WRC community. In addition to branding opportunities based around the WRC, including in stages and the official website, the Oasis gives Abu Dhabi a visible and credible presence within the service park, the heart of every WRC rally.

Eventually, the Oasis will form the focal point of Abu Dhabi’s activity aimed at communicating its key messages and values to the worldwide WRC fan-base. However, for the moment, the Oasis will provide an opportunity for members of the accredited media community to enjoy a respite from the action of a WRC event and sample some of Abu Dhabi’s legendary hospitality.

While the welcome and the climate in Abu Dhabi is always warm, the opposite was true of the weather for this morning’s shakedown for Rally Ireland. Low temperatures and damp conditions meant that the final opportunity for the drivers and teams to fine-tune their set-ups for the start of the event was a tricky affair.

Rally Ireland is the penultimate round of the 2007 WRC and Ford approaches the event with a 34-point lead in the Manufacturers championship. In addition, Marcus Grönholm holds a four-point advantage in the drivers’ championship with two more rounds to go.

However, Ireland also marks the final 2007 WRC outing for Abu Dhabi’s Sheikh Khalid Al Qassimi, since he will be competing on his home round of the Middle East Rally Championship, the UAE Rally which takes place at the same time as Wales Rally GB. Al Qassimi spent the morning fine-tuning the settings on his Abu Dhabi-branded Ford Focus RS WRC ready for the narrow and bumpy Irish stages, which feature frequent surface changes.

“We began this morning with the same set-up that we used in Spain in September,” the Emirati explained. “We had the same differential and Anti-Lag System (ALS) settings but felt that the car was a little too nervous. So we changed to slightly different settings that the engineers had developed, to make the car a little ‘softer’ and this was much better. The car was less nervous in the corners and that helped the confidence to build.

“We also tried some softer springs on the car – not a huge step but to try to get a little more body roll in the corners, as with these narrow stages, I felt that it will help with the behaviour of the car and the grip. I was more comfortable with the car and the time was better, so I will use that set-up to begin the event.

“I think it will be a tough rally, for sure. The roads are very narrow – sometimes barely wider than the cars themselves and for that reason, you must be very precise. If you are kicked off line by a bump or get off line yourself, one of the tyres will touch the grass and you will spin or go off the road in an instant. So I need to make sure that I do not slide the car too much and use a driving style which is very neat and tidy and more like the kind of approach you would adopt on a circuit, driving the car through the corners rather than sliding around them.”