Bahrain not resting on laurels

Despite the short time frame in which the Sahkir circuit was readied for the Middle East's inaugural F1 race, it pulled off an impressive feat to put on a trouble free event and circuit chiefs are confident of making sure the same happens in 2005.

Speaking at Autosport International on Friday, Bahrain's Sheikh Salman Al Khalifa said that the organisers were hosting a series of meetings in the next few weeks to ensure that they match or even exceed what will likely be raised expectations this year.

"After the Formula 1 race last year we didn't know if we had done a good job," said Sheikh Al Khalifa. "So to then take the trophy for the best organised race just showed us what we had done and made us very proud.

"But we have now raised expectations and we are now going through the process of looking at what we did well and what we didn't do well. It's not our culture to just sit back, we have looked at other events, like Australia and China, to see what they do differently and hopefully we can do things even better."