The success of the 2004 Gulf Air Bahrain Grand Prix shows that Formula One has found a new home in the Arab world. Formula One teams are hoping to attract new fans in this market and many are already working hard to create excitement for the sport among Middle Eastern youth. During this week’s Bahrain Grand Prix, the Lucky Strike BAR Honda racing team launched a new Arabic version of Honda’s Formula One website. Hondaf1.com is the only seven language Formula One website, keeping fans up to date with the latest information about Honda’s F1 activities in Arabic, English, French, German, Italian, Japanese and Spanish.
All the other F-1 teams have websites, although most are not accessible to Arabic speakers. The sites offer everything from team reports to games, screensavers and wallpaper. Williams is at bmw.williamsf1.com. McClaren can be found at mclaren.com. For Ferrari go to ferrari.it. Renault is at renaultf1.com. See Toyota racing at toyota-f1.com. You can also click to sauber-petronas.com, jaguar-racing.com, f1Jordan.com and minardi.it.
Many Formula One sponsors have F-1 websites too. One of the nicest is at shell.com/home/Framework?siteId=ferrari-en. To celebrate the start of the 2004 F-1 season, Shell is giving away some very nice free stickers showing the Ferrari F-1 cars. Register at the site to have the stickers delivered by post — even to addresses outside the United States.
