On the surface, boxing and motor racing do not have a lot in common. But the latter is also a mano a mano sport where you go one on one - but with your team-mate.
While this might not involve physical attack - though in the United States one year, the veteran sportscar racer George Follmer did go looking for his British team-mate Jackie Oliver wielding a mace - there have been plenty of occasions when temperaments have boiled over where two strong egos have been paired together.
In Rubens Barrichello, Michael Schumacher has a compliant partner who works for the good of the Ferrari team, but elsewhere, thankfully, 2005 holds the promise of some explosive inter-team battles.
The most likely to involve fireworks is at McLaren-Mercedes, where Juan Pablo Montoya joins Kimi Raikkonen.
The Colombian made a big impression when he joined Williams-BMW in 2001, pushing past Schumacher in Brazil and heading for victory until a tangle with the back-marker Jos Verstappen.
But since then the former CART champion has often been more Audley Harrison than Muhammad Ali.
Relations with Williams strained to breaking point, and he departed for McLaren with a final "up yours" victory in his pocket and the nickname "Burger King" ringing in his ears on account of his apparent dislike of training.
Now Montoya weighs in 6kg lighter, is delighting McLaren with his speed and technical feedback, and is ready at last to deliver.
At the same time, Raikkonen has fallen from grace with some well-documented moments of inebriated self-exposure which proved a huge embarrassment to the team as they were courting new sponsor Johnnie Walker.
The Finn is known as "The Iceman" because of his clever method of coping with the publicity side of his job largely by muttering monosyllabically; people tend to stop pestering you after a while.
Pairing him with Montoya, a voluble character who usually lets you know exactly what he is thinking, is a combination of fire and ice.
This week Montoya demonstrated his fiery side.
He said of the Williams team: "I don't know what they wanted. I was winning races, driving the wheels off the car. [Frank] Williams complained that I was overweight and unfit - he just whinged about it."
At Renault they have two surgically precise drivers in Fernando Alonso and the returning Giancarlo Fisichella, who will challenge one another with great finesse. The Spaniard was the sensation of 2003, only his second season of Formula One, and is the youngest-ever grand prix winner. Fisichella is the veteran who remains unaccountably underrated.
After starting his career with Minardi (as Alonso would) in 1996 and then starring for Jordan before joining Renault, he sank as low as Jordan in 2002.
Drivers do not normally come back from that sort of knockout, but a year with Sauber in 2004 enabled Fisichella to remind people of his sheer class.
How he and Alonso cope with one another is going to be one of the most fascinating aspects of the season, given that their characters appear to be so similar.
The other great contest is at Williams-BMW. Desperate to forget the draining acrimony of the four-year pairing of Montoya and Ralf Schumacher, they now have the popular "Mr Clean" Mark Webber and the introverted Nick Heidfeld.
The Australian Webber is a brilliant team player and motivator who gives his best at all times and has done everything but prove his ultimate speed. Heidfeld shuffles along like a reluctant kid on his way to school, but is a tough little racer who has grabbed this final driving chance with both hands, having also sunk as low as Jordan.
If you believe paddock gossip, Heidfeld only got the nod over the Brazilian Antonio Pizzonia because of BMW.
Frank Williams and Patrick Head say it was his experience and technical knowledge.
Be that as it may, word during the final tests was that Webber had let his chin drop because of the poor performance of the new car, and that Heidfeld has already crept into his head.
Time will be the true judge. Just be thankful that McLaren, Renault and Williams do not share Ferrari's obsession with team orders.
- INDEPENDENT
* On the grid
FERRARI: Michael Schumacher, with seven world titles and 83 Grand Prix wins, will be out to continue his and Ferrari's domination. The slight cloud residing over Ferrari is that it is using basically the same car as last year - at least in the early races, with the new Ferrari to make its race debut at the Spanish Grand Prix in May.
WILLIAMS-BMW: Australia's Mark Webber has been told the team want race wins from their new top driver and his offsider Nick Heidfeld. Webber says the pressure to win is a motivating factor but former BAR-Honda boss David Richards says that while the Australian is a potential world champion, he may have to be patient in his first year.
BAR-HONDA: Ferrari's closest challenger last season has tested away from the pack at Valencia and after a few false starts, British driver Jenson Button has declared the team "back on track". "Overall, I am happy with the progress made," Button said. Honda has tested an upgraded engine planned for Melbourne.
RENAULT: The team have set stunning times at their test session in Barcelona, sealing the top two spots ahead of the on-track rivals. The powerful combination looks set to be a major worry for defending champion Ferrari as Fernando Alonso and Giancarlo Fisichella were both half a second quicker than any other driver has gone at the Catalunya track in the European winter.
McLAREN-MERCEDES: If the team can produce a competitive car, the drivers will do the rest - the electrifying combination of Juan Pablo Montoya and Kimi Raikkonen is poised to make amends for a disappointing 2004. McLaren have concentrated on engine longevity given the new rules requiring an engine last two race meetings - and have reportedly done up to 1800km on one engine.
TOYOTA: New drivers Jarno Trulli and Ralf Schumacher have been finding test conditions at Barcelona tricky and are yet to get to grips with the new harder tyres required. However Trulli declared the team "confident" ahead of Melbourne. Schumacher was more cautious, saying he was "reasonably happy" with the car.
JORDAN: An intriguing prospect - two drivers who have never raced in F1 before trying to lift a team with faded glory. The first Indian driver ever at the elite level, Narain Karthikeyan joins the first Portuguese in F1 for many years, Tiago Monteiro. Certain backmarkers who look like they could be a bother to the pacesetters when it comes time to lap them.
RED BULL: The team announced young Austrian Christian Klien, who drove for them in their former incarnation as Jaguar last season, to partner ex-McLaren pilot David Coulthard. Difficult to see the outfit making any progress, especially after an inexplicable clean-out of their most experienced race hierarchy over summer.
SAUBER: Potentially a good combination - two fiery characters in talented but crash-happy Felipe Massa and 1997 world champion Jacques Villeneuve, who will have to snap out of the torpor he displayed at BAR-Honda while on a multimillion-dollar contract. Massa has outpaced the Canadian in pre-season testing, which is notoriously unreliable as a guide.
MINARDI: No-nonsense Aussie Paul Stoddart continues to funnel millions of his own fortune into this backmarker team as they maintains their odd role of grooming Formula One drivers so they can go to better teams. This year Stoddart will present Dutchman Christijan Albers and Austrian Patrick Friesacher as rookies.
Motorsport: Who's got the Formula will be the One
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