Hard to imagine an auto race could be the biggest global event in the history of Abu Dhabi, but there you are.

For our first two weeks here, working at The National, there was really only one story (OK, aside from the plane crash in the emirate of Sharjah, up the coast), and it was the Grand Prix.

Grand Prix this, Grand Prix that … we love the Grand Prix. Everyone does. We are universally excited about it.

And from the perspective of “Hey, world, we’re here!” … it was hugely significant for Abu Dhabi.

My sense of Western ideas about local geography?

Europe has a pretty good idea where Dubai is. On the Arabian Peninsula. Near the western end of the Gulf. (We used know it as the Persian Gulf, but don’t even think of calling it that while you’re on the Arabian side of the water.) Dubai is considered, in Europe and Britain, a sort of Middle Eastern Palm Springs. It’s always hot, you can have first-class everything, you can live beyond your means without trying — and anticipate sun 365 days a year. Which is a big deal to sun-starved Euros in December, January, February …

But Euros are a little hazy about Abu Dhabi.

And Americans may have heard of Dubai (the place with the indoor ski run, right?) but are utterly confused by the idea of Abu Dhabi. Sorry. It’s true.

To recap: Abu Dhabi is the capital of the United Arab Emirates, seven small (or very small) principalities on the nothern tip of the Arabian Peninsula. Next to Oman. North of Saudi Arabia. East of Qatar. Just south of Iran?

OK. I’m confusing you. You have a globe? No?

Anyway, Dubai is just one of the seven emirates. Not even the capital. Not even the richest, in terms of oil and gas. That would be Abu Dhabi — capital and richest. And largest and most populous.

It was Abu Dhabi’s ruler, Sheikh Zayed, who was behind the establishment of the UAE, back in 1971. The ruler of Abu Dhabi is the president of the UAE. All the time. Dubai’s ruler is No. 2. Always.

Yet … it is Dubai that stole a march on Abu Dhabi. It is Dubai that decided to turn itself into a bright and lively and even decadent tourist-destination spot a decade or two ago. (In large part because Dubai’s oil is going to run out any minute; Abu Dhabi can pump for another 100 years.)

This includes the area of sports, as well. Dubai has the big golf tournament that Tiger Woods plays in every year. Dubai has a couple of significant tennis tournaments. (That’s where Americans would have heard of Dubai.)

Abu Dhabi … well, Abu Dhabi had a lot of money but not a lot of name recognition.

Which is where Formula One auto racing comes in.

Bahrain, another oil-rich speck on the map, west of here, got on the F1 schedule a few years back … and Abu Dhabi said, “I’ll have one of those, please.”

The thing about Abu Dhabi? It can afford pretty much anything it wants. (Every time you fill your gas tank, you are sending money over here. The locals thank you.) Normally, Abu Dhabi is thinking about business deals. Not about making a splash in the global media. Abu Dhabi seems a little too dignified for that. Chasing decadent Euro tourists … that was for those impresarios and backslappers up the beach at Dubai.

Abu Dhabi, till now, seemed to figure that The Serious Players knew all they needed to know about Abu Dhabi.

But, I believe, all the recognition Dubai reveled in … all that tourist money and those splashy hotels … eventually got to the men who run Abu Dhabi.  They decided they ought to have a silly, world-class event of their own … and an F1 race it was.

So, they committed to building a race track on a desert island just outside of Abu Dhabi City, poured about $1.3 billion into it, came up with a very nice, state-of-the-art track, the Yas Marina Circuit … and on Sunday they had a race.

Yes, I know … F1 isn’t very big in the States. It has come and gone in the U.S. (Long Beach used to have a race, and then Detroit did, and then Indianapolis did …) and it ultimately proved not all that interesting to Yanks and not something worth working to keep because most Americans 1) a decade or two ago became NASCAR fans and 2) those Americans keen on open-wheel racing gravitated toward the ovals of Indy or the street races of CART (and then the IRL).

So, what went down here over the weekend was paid minimum heed in the States … but it got major attention in most of the rest of the world, where F1 is a seriously big deal.

As the race went off, we can imagine all the people involved in Abu Dhabi tourism rubbing their hands in glee and saying “take that, Dubai!” … and thinking of millions of television viewers from around the world (and F1 has stops in Brazil, Australia, Malaysia, Singapore and China, as well as a batch in Europe) looking at that new, shiny track and saying, “Ah, yes! Abu Dhabi!”

Without question,  F1 is the most glamorous version of motor sports ever invented, and probably outstrips golf and tennis and polo (and probably even the NBA) for upscale fans. It’s a sort of traveling jetsetter circus. And Abu Dhabi wanted some of that.

So, this weekend … King Juan Carlos of Spain was in town. So was Richard Branson and Boris Becker and Naomi Campbell. Entertainers such as Beyonce and Aerosmith. Plus the assorted supermodels who trail the F1 circuit, and always have.

Abu Dhabi loved it. It lapped it up. (Here is the link to one of The National’s package of stories in this morning: “They came, they say, they loved it”)

The paper pulled out the stops. I lost track of how many special sections we printed. Two? Three? The cover of the newspaper the past two days — and this is a broadsheet, mind you, not a tabloid — had one photo (zero stories) on page 1. A gi-normous mug of Lewis Hamilton after he won the pole, and Jenson Butten and Sebastien Vettel spraying rose water (champagne is a no-no, remember?) on the podium after the race.

So, now, several more people have heard of Abu Dhabi. Not that it really cares. (But, oh, yes, it does.)

The long view here seems to be that, eventually, it will by Abu Dhabi that matters, among the emirates, and everyone will know that. Brits, Yanks, Aussies, Mexicans. Abu Dhabi has the oil, remember? Its family runs the country. Those Dubai folks will be boom-and-bust entertainers and tour-group guides when Abu Dhabi is still pumping oil at $150 a barrel.

But, in the meantime, Abu Dhabi now has its own world-class event.

It will have more, many of them cultural and educational (a branch of the Louvre, a branch of the Guggenheim, a branch of New York University).

But for Right This Minute, Abu Dhabi has Formula One racing and the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix … and don’t you forget it. Please.