The dream Bahrain Formula One Grand Prix

What you need to know:

  • It was time to put the little boy in the children’s activity area. He enjoyed the magic show, face painting and other activities that kept him busy for two hours.

Formula one Grand Prix is definitely a passion before anything else. I happened to accompany a passionate man to his first ever, F1 race. A dream come true. The race took place at the Bahrain international circuit from April 6 to April 8, with the theme, Race the Stars.
The middle-aged F1 fan, had this dream since his childhood on the little island of Rhodes in Greece. He says his elder brother had a Ferrari toy car that he got for his birthday. Playing with that car was his dream, however, he was often denied that pleasure and had to perform the big brother’s hard chores in order to gain access to the car for a limited time, until the next chore.

Later on, he got his own toy car and the dream of seeing the real ones in the racing arena remained vivid in his mind. Apart of the dream came true by watching the races on TV channels. It was a pretest for the real experience that took place recently. We arrived on day 2 of the race before noon. Braving the relentless hot sun that Saturday, it left us tanned properly. We were accompanied by his wife and little son who loved every bit of the activity arena that is filled with all kinds of programmes and entertainment.

There were several pre-qualifier tests that day, men went in the designated stands to watch the race, while we stayed with the four-year-old in the common area. We enjoyed the music by different artistes and dance by international performers who were flown in just for these days. The most interesting was a dance group from Colombia that put the place on fire, so much energy and power released from these young drummers. There was also a group of African performers that were according to the advertisement leaflet ”from Cirque Africa: Hakuna Matata” but I was surprised that they were not wearing the colourful costumes as shown in the brochure. They were in ordinary T-shirts. I’m not sure if they were just warming up for the evening programme, or their costumes had gone missing.

It was time to put the little boy in the children’s activity area. He enjoyed the magic show, face painting and other activities that kept him busy for two hours. There were a good number of little food stalls, with almost same prices for snacks and drinks, but prices that leave a deep hole in the pocket. We were not allowed to bring in food and drinks, there were no options but to pay. The organisation and security of the circuit was of high standards, with free bus shuttles from and to major areas in the city, many visitors had a chance to experience a professional treatment from the organisers.
For our F1 fan, not only his dream came true, his favourite team also won the race.