Drama off the track spoiled F1 season opener
The excitement of the Melbourne Grand Prix took a back seat to the city's courtroom battle
All sport is pointless. When you look at it objectively, it seems pretty stupid to spend 90 minutes trying to put a glorified pig's bladder in the back of a net. In the greater scheme of things, there must be better ways to spend your time than knocking seven bells out of each other just to get a rugby ball over a random line. For that matter, when you look at it like that, driving a car around in circles 50 or 60 times just to be the fastest is plain daft.
Of course, it isn't pointless. It isn't about the objective of the game at all. It's about mastering a skill, having fun, making friends and occasionally (if you're lucky), showing everyone else you are the best at this pointless exercise. There's a lot of satisfaction to be had from it and sometimes (again, if you're lucky) cash to be made.
Sport is also about spectators. To take a dispassionate view, it seems a bit odd to pin so much emotional capital on a team and a sport. There are more important things in life. Yet the experience also brings a lot to the ardent fan.
In Australia as the season opened it was engaged in something else it does very well; shooting itself in the foot
There's the tribalism of supporting a team in the age of individualism and a chance to let off steam in an environment where getting overexcited isn't frowned upon. It also brings elation (just ask the Kiwi cricket fans at the Cricket World Cup) and despair (any England rugby fan at the final whistle at Twickenham last weekend).
Which brings us to Formula One. The sport isn't immune from providing the highs and lows of emotions, it can certainly grandstand and provide peerless spectacle, but in Australia as the season opened it was engaged in something else it does very well; shooting itself in the foot.
The build-up to the season opener should have been all about the anticipation of the first race of the season in the stunning setting of Albert Park. Instead, attention was focused on a Melbourne courtroom as once again Formula One got litigious.
Giedo van der Garde was battling against Sauber, trying to force the team to honour their contract for him to drive in 2015. The problem was that Sauber already had two drivers ready to go - Filipe Nasr and Marcus Ericsson. Oh, and last year's drivers, Adrian Sutil and Esteban Gutierrez, were still on the books.
Five into two doesn't go and Van der Garde was determined that he wasn't going to give way - backed by the Australian courts. So we had the farcical scenes of the Dutchman in Marcus Ericsson's race suit having a seat fitting. The late decision meant he didn't have the super licence required to race, so he was out of garage and out of the circuit.
Why was Sauber made to look so ridiculous? Cashflow. Needing money to keep afloat means signing drivers who bring cash. They may have paid Van der Garde €15 million (HK$127 million) to be rid of him, but their new drivers have brought €40 million, paid up front. A bit of humiliation is a small price to pay for staying in business.
Sauber at least got out on the track eventually. The second farcical event of the weekend concerned the Manor team born out of the Marussia outfit that went bust last year. It had been a fairy tale right up to the moment they realised they had computer problems, and the cars stayed in the garage.
Let's hope they get going in Malaysia this weekend. Let's hope the whole weekend is a bit more focused on the racing. It will help if there are more than 15 cars on the grid like there were in Australia. It will help if Fernando Alonso races and scotches all the rumours about his health, although his waiting McLaren is so slow he may wish he had stayed in bed.
It will also help if the tropical weather behaves itself and it doesn't pour with rain. You could argue that's one thing Formula One can't control, but running the race in the stormy afternoon is something in its power to change.
