FiA Formula One Race Director Charlie Whiting has arrived in Abu Dhabi the capital of the United Arab Emirates, direct from Suzuka, to approve the venue ahead of Formula 1’s 2009 season finale.

The new Yas Marina Circuit has only just been handed over from the construction company to the race organizers, as FIA race director Whiting touches down to give the venue the final approval of the sport’s governing body.

“The initial inspection has already been done. Whiting comes here on October 5 to do the final tick-off of the boxes,” race boss Richard Cregan told the Gulf News.

Follow the construction of the future home of the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix here.

The Charlotte, N.C.-based Formula One upstart US F1 has finally given us a look inside its facility, a significant step toward dispelling any lingering doubt about the project’s legitimacy.

Housed in the old Joe Gibbs Racing NASCAR team shop, the team–as seen in these photos–has a design office up and running, along with a machine shop, carbon-fiber-baking autoclave, multi-axis CNC machines and rapid prototyping machine.

Spearheaded by engineer Ken Anderson and longtime F1 journalist, team employee and TV personality Peter Windsor, US F1 insists it will be on the grid at the season-opening race in Bahrain on March 14. Anderson and Windsor have secured backing from YouTube co founder and CEO Chad Hurley, who they announced as a third partner in August.

Though US F1 does not expect to test a car on the track until next year, it has an engine-supply deal with Cosworth. Anderson said he expects a real-life car to emerge in November.  There is still no word on drivers, though F1 veterans Pedro de la Rosa and Alex Wurz have been linked to the project, along with young Americans Jonathan Summerton and John Edwards, who compete in the Atlantic Championship, and J. R. Hildebrand, the 2009 Indy Lights champion.

Windsor told AutoWeek recently that while he wants to ultimately feature two American drivers, it is likely that he will initially sign the two drivers who he feels can best meet the team’s initial development needs, regardless of nationality. Several other experienced F1 drivers are without race seats for next year, including Anthony Davidson and Sébastien Bourdais.

Meanwhile, Anderson – who has been the less visible of the two team bosses, if for no other reason than Windsor’s Speed TV gig – took time on Wednesday to answer some basic questions. The Q&A was provided by US F1.

Q: Ken, we’re hearing about a lot of activity in Charlotte these days. What is going on at the US F1 Team?

It has been quite a ride since we started the team last year, and has become far more intense since the signing of the Concorde Agreement. Our world headquarters is now complete and fully functional, and the 2010 race car is in the construction phase.

Formula One is such a glamorous sport, with cutting-edge technologies, in the most beautiful and scenic venues like Monaco, Valencia, Singapore, etc.  So I beg the question, why does Formula One Management, the media distribution and promotion arm of F1, lag on providing the most advanced broadcasting technologies?

However, the Federation Internationale de l’Automobile (FiA) and Formula One Management (FOM) seem to be forgetting something for their worldwide TV audience: an HD feed. The current word is that the final Grand Prix of the season at Abu Dhabi will feature a HD world feed, which will hopefully open the door for getting HD feeds for all venues soon. But why is Formula One so behind the times on this? Is it a money issue, broadcasting rights issue, or just a plain oversight?

An HD feed would be great, but I’d like to go further than this… why isn’t Formula One using cutting-edge distribution tools? Due to time zone differences for such a global sport, I would think any type of DVR partnership would be a great win.

How about new online distribution technologies, in this ever TV-to-Web media convergence? Most people in the industry want to bring the TV experience to the web, but I would tend to differ and see it the other way around. The Web experience can be so much more integrated in a rich-media experience, marrying video with any type of other information available online at a user’s request (anything, anytime, anywhere). It can also provide quite a bit of value bringing the history of the sport for newcomers, creating a deeper understanding and stronger connection between the sport and the fans.

For example, I can definitely foresee a DVR-like web broadcast in HD merging video feeds with the following:

• Video picker: pick your video feeds (main mixed race feed, iso camera for teams or cars, car cams, helmet cam, etc.)
• Radio conversations: toggling this feature on/off to hear conversations between pit-wall crew and drivers (with closed captioning)
• Time, track position viewer: allowing the audience to see lap times, sector times between user-defined drivers (similar to comparing items in a product search)
• Telemetry data: so you can see the real-time data of the car(s) you are following
• Contextual callouts: for records and histories for track, team, driver (how cool would it be to see a video regarding the track history of Monza during a paused race and seeing the 1950’s cars on the parabolica and evolution of the track?)
• Contextual ads: the web is a powerful force in tailoring ads for viewers and events. Why not leverage this to subsidize costs for a web event, or even better… generate revenue so FIA/FOM can lower ticket prices!! This would be a win-win situation for sponsors and viewers. Why? Ads rotating on a user’s system during the course of a race versus 30 seconds commercial spots, and viewers able to see the entire race without disruptive commercials breaking the F1 track action.

USF1.com has put a new “Coming Soon” splash image on their site, and it has created quite a bit of buzz about the first Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) photos coming out of the Team US F1 camp.

USF1’s first chassis had been revealed on a SPEEDTV webcast. The CFD images of the new machine were shown to viewers of the Wind Tunnel program in the USA during an interview with the teams key players. Anderson revealed that the new car should be in a rolling condition this month, when more detailed technical work will be carried out.

There have been widespread rumors recently surrounding the new teams progress yet as these images show design work is reasonably advanced.

Rear Diffuser Turbulence

At a meeting of the Formula One Teams’ Association (FOTA) at Suzuka, a novel cost-cutting initiative for the forthcoming winter period was discussed.  FOTA deputy chairman John Howett told reporters after the meeting that several teams support the concept of organizing a single event to officially launch all the cars ahead of the 2010 season. Traditionally, teams reveal their new cars to the world’s media at individual events.  But with the new era of limited testing, most teams are targeting the same period in January to have their new cars completed and ready to launch.

Also briefly discussed at the meeting was the issue of unanimously agreeing to allow a guaranteed 14th team entry for BMW Sauber’s new owner Qadbak. Sir Frank Williams confirmed his opposition to extending the grid from the traditional 13 teams.  “It’s illogical to change the rules suddenly for one extra person,” he said, adding that Sauber may still be able to race next year if any of the new teams do not make it to Bahrain next March. “They may have a chance of getting in based on the gossip that’s going around,” Williams said.  He said his reluctance is also based on the fact that almost nothing is known publicly about Qadbak, a consortium of anonymous wealthy families.