Bahrain events gearing up

F1 FEVER HITS THE STREETS OF BAHRAIN

Manama, 21st February 2006; With just over two weeks to go no one could accuse the Bahrain International Circuit of resting on its laurels in the run up to the third Gulf Air Bahrain Grand Prix. The promoters of the opening round 2006 FIA Formula One World Championship have gone all- out to take the passion and excitement of the forthcoming event to the people of Bahrain and the surrounding region. This Friday (24th February) will see the one of Bahrain's most prominent roads, the seafront boulevard of the King Faisal Highway in Manama, play host to the Yalla Bahrain! F1 Festival.

The event will be based around three activities, the highlight of these being the BIC street parade along the highway. Spectators at the event will be treated to a thundering cavalcade made up of some of motorsport's most exciting cars from Porsche SuperCup GT3s to flame-spitting Holden V8s, Formula BMW single-seaters and Thunder Arabia training cars. The racers will be joined by Harley Davidson motorcycles, Hummer 4x4s and Apache buggies in the 1.5km parade.

The action begins at 3.45pm along a course running from the King Faisal Highway/Crown Plaza junction past the newly-built World Trade Centre and ending at one of Bahrain's most recent and most exciting developments, the Bahrain Financial Harbour.

The action on the ground will then be paralleled in the air as the world famous Red Bull 'Flying Bulls' stunt planes take to the skies above the Manama coastline to perform their death-defying aerobatics for the crowds below. The air display will be closely followed by a musical firework extravaganza.

Martin Whitaker, General Manager of the BIC commented: "Bahrain is one of only 16 countries in the world to have the honour of hosting a Formula One Grand Prix this year. Not only are we hosting a race but we are opening the series, an event that regularly attracts up to 400million viewers around the world.

"Formula One presents a unique opportunity to harness the minds of the world's opinion leaders and formers and as a result the continued developments throughout the Kingdom of Bahrain are set to shine as the world's attention is turned to the start of the 2006 FIA Formula One World Championship at the Gulf Air Bahrain Grand Prix. The main objective behind all of our Yalla Bahrain! events in the run up to the Grand Prix is to really bring motorsport to life for the people of Bahrain, what better way to do this than with the F1 Festival?"

-bic-