The Grand Racing weekend at Dubai Autodrome on 5-6 December 2008 kicks off the international motorsport season in the UAE. Fans are in for a triple header featuring the opening round of the second season of Speedcar Series, round 2 of the 2008/2009 GP2 Asia Championship and the final round of the 2008 European FIA GT3 Championship.

This years Speed Car series looks set to get even better for 2008/2009 with radically revamped cars more suited to the conditions that prevail in the region while retaining their spectacular performance and competitiveness. This includes new lighter composite paneled bodies and new rip roaring V8, 6.2 litre engines.Prize money has been boosted for Season 2 of the  Speedcar Series with a 3 million dollar prize pot including 500,000 US dollars to the winning championship driver and an additional 500,000 US dollars to the winning championship team. Drivers will also win pre-determined amounts of money for each of the 12 races through the season. As an added incentive drivers on pole position for each of the six rounds will be awarded 10,000 US dollars. Johnny Herbert will be defending his crown and will surely be the man to beat. He faces a tough challenge from last year’s favourite Jean Alesi and the double pronged attack from the Union Properties team spearheaded by last year’s runner-up David Terrien and Dubai’s favourite driver Sheikh Hasher Al Maktoum. A host of top names are likely to be on the grid for the season opener with the likes of Paul Tracy, Vitantonio Liuzzi, Alex Yoong, Gianni Morbidelli, Heinz Harald Frentzen, Chris Buncombe, Christian Jones and Bertrand Baguette having tested in November with the view to joining the series. The spectacular sight of a full field of flame spitting, roaring V8s rushing down to Turn 1 and the inevitable door scraping battles that will ensue, should have the crowd on their feet throughout both races on the weekend.

Meanwhile,the young guns of GP2 Asia return for round two of the 2008/2009 Championship with a host of new blood lining up on the grid at the Dubai Autodrome. Roldan Rodriguez (Team Piquet GP) claimed his first GP2 win in the opener at Shanghai while Davide Valsecchi (Durango) won the sprint race while the likes Kamui Kobayashi (Dams), Sakon Yamamoto (ART Grand Prix), Javier Villa (Super Nova Racing), Vitaly Petrov (Barwa Campos) Teams and Earl Bamber (Qi-Meritus Mahara) all showed that they are potential race winners.Local interest will revolve around the progress of Bahraini Mohammed Al Fardan (GFH Team iSport) who becomes the first Arab driver at this level of single seater competition as well as Dubai based and ATCUAE licensed driver Andreas Zuber (Fisichella Motorsport) – both will be out to impress on their “home” circuit.

It is commonly known that the GP2 Series is the last rung on the ladder to Formula One and today’s Grand Prix grids abound with drivers that featured prominently in the series. World Champion Lewis Hamilton is a graduate as were Nico Rosberg, Adrian Sutil, Timo Glock and Heikki Kovalainen to name a few.

With two races remaining there is still everything to play for in the FIA GT3 European Championship. Seven drivers head for the final event, at the Dubai Autodrome, with hopes of being crowned champions. With Ford, Aston Martin and Corvette teams all looking to grab first place, it should be an incredible spectacle. All in all the Grand racing weekend should be an awesome weekend of top level motorsport. For more information go to www.dubaiautodrome.com