A score to settle

Another momentous occasion in the sporting calender is upon us this weekend. With speed high on the agenda, not to mention verve, tenacity and ballsy manoeuvres. Yes, that's right. It's the boat race.

Although, in a global sense, perhaps our eyes should be averted to the goings on down under where the Formula One season commences.

Well maybe they would have been were it not for a sequence of events that makes Formula One even less credulous that it already was.

I personally used to love the sport. Every other Sunday was filled with great anticipation and excitement. OK so overtaking became a little thin on the ground as the 90s progressed and as the 21st century began a certain Teutonic feel to those weekends tended to dominate but still I was enthralled. That enthralment only began to diminish as the rule-makers began to... well... make more rules. Or, more specifically, meddle with the previous ones.

With recent events in mind, whereby the FIA have decided to change the rules giving the World drivers title to the individual with the most race wins as opposed to the person who has accrued the most points, seemed to make a modicum of sense. Rewarding ambitious drivers- those who actually won grands prix instead of just sitting in second or third position and picking up points each race. This rule change might have been accepted by most had it not been for the bizarre set of circumstances surrounding it.

Firstly, to announce this on the eve of the season is not just wrong, it's downright scandalous. Ludicrous. Ridiculous. Stupid. No adjective alone can really do this any justice.

Secondly, what was wrong with the old scoring system that kept many of us, the viewing public, happy for many years. 10-6-4-3-2-1 worked very well.

It was only when a Ferrari/Schumacher combination began to dominate that the governing body decided do mix things up a little. Making the sport a bit more random so the viewer could see a greater spectacle. What it really did, however, was cheat their audience. For example, you had a situation going into the final race of the 2003 season where Kimi Raikkonen had won just one grand prix all season compared to Schumacher's six victories and yet the Finn still had a shot at the world title.

To add to the randomness the FIA also changed the format of qualifying into something very confusing indeed. To juggle up the grid a little which it occasionally did but it's not really fair is it? It's not really sport, either, for that matter.

This kind of rule change was akin to the Golfing fraternity saying, "OK Tiger. We recognise you're a bit good but we want to have a greater variant of winners so what we're going to do is shorten the fairways on all the world's golf courses and maybe make you use cricket bats instead of golf clubs. Just to 'juggle it up' a bit, you understand."

On top of all these shenanigans have been the protestations of 'that's not fair' from various teams. What is and is not fair should have been made clearer sooner and stamped out. The word on Team Brawn's rear diffuser should have been qualified at the immediate point of confusion several weeks ago and it is only an unsettling tactic from rival teams to leave it until the week leading up to the season's start. Now that's not fair.

Nevertheless, I will be tuning in with bleary eyes in the early hours of Sunday morning in the hope that this season it will return to the sport I once loved. Though the chances of that happening are about as likely as Max Mosely getting caught with his trousers down and surrounded by fiver hookers dressed as Nazis.