Eric Thompson: Last chance for Formula One?

Is 2010 Formula One's last roll of the dice? Could be. Despite all the hype about this season and Michael Schumacher's return to rattle a few cages, I have a sneaking suspicion if the wheels fall off this year, she's all over rover.

The sport is morally bankrupt after two years of dodgy dealings, allegations of spying, sex tapes and a driver being ordered to plant his car into a concrete wall.

Even the attempt to get new team blood into the sport has practically fallen flat on its face with USF1 pulling the plug on 2010. I would not be surprised if the other new teams don't even make it halfway through the season.

Formula One is turning into the Americas Cup on wheels with team's whinging and bitching about wings and diffusers. You wait, next some team principal will complain about a competitors paint job because he'll think red is faster than silver.

Instead of complaining about other people's cars, I would suggest some of the more litigious teams look to themselves to check they haven't hired crap designers or drivers.

The driver thing is getting really odd these days - for the lesser teams it's no longer about driver talent, it's all about how big a cheque some spoilt brat can bring to the table.

If some team owners pulled their heads out of their wallets, they might just spot a real fast kid who might just get their dog of a car up towards the front of the field.

I've never seen a dollar bill behind a steering wheel putting a car on pole, have you?

While the ruling body is full of bluster about the health of the sport, I think it's bluster and delusions of grandeur. It nearly imploded last year and there's only a thin veneer of respectability left.

F1 portrays itself as a global business comparable with the larger multinationals. Rubbish. It's still an old boy's club run by a few old boys and team owners who can't pry their own arthritic hands from the reins.

Unless F1 grows up real soon and stops fire fighting blazes set by themselves, there'll be nothing left but a carbon footprint.

With a dwindling pool of global money to call on and a septuagenarian at the helm in one Bernie Ecclestone, I have my doubts for the global attraction of the sport. Especially when Ecclestone, in an interview with The Weekend Herald, said, "My contribution is I helped the sport to where it is today. I just want to keep growing F1 and I shall continue doing what I am doing as long as I think I can deliver."

I wouldn't go as far as to think megalomaniac, but jeez, is it really up to one bloke to decide the future of a globally watched sport?

Don't worry, I'm not turning into a tree-hugger, or a 'let's share it with the group before we make a dumbed down decision' advocate. But Bernie needs to pay a bit of attention to what the key stakeholders in the sport think - us. Watching a procession of paper darts following each other nose-to-tail over a few hours is not entertainment.

Formula One has been at the top of most watched motorsport for a long time now but it's not adapting to its audience. The rule makers are tinkering with the technicality of the cars that nobody sitting in front of a TV understands anyway.

There might be the odd train spotter who knows how the widget, attached to the doofer, right next to the gizmo, which sits next to the thingamajig does, but the rest of us don't give a damn.

We want close racing, passing and the odd crash. Over the last few years watching F1 has been akin to watching a castrated dog trying to remember how to dry hump someone's leg. Boring.

I'll be watching the big taxis from Adelaide this weekend banging doors and rear-ending each other - and they sound better anyway.

- Eric Thompson