Flip through the latest issue of Gulf Weekly.
I'm least surprised that Lewis Hamilton has admitted that he's 'disillusioned' with Formula One because of the amount of politics involved in it. But what is more shocking is that it's coming from a lad who is only in his third year in the sport and someone till recently praised for bringing a refreshing change to a sport often accused of being pedestrian and predictable.
Formula One is certainly going through tough times and the young and the old in the sport are getting increasingly annoyed. And the old refrain that what you see is not what you get in Formula One is gaining extra meaning.
Over the years, almost every sport has altered its rules and regulations or simply evolved with changing times and tastes. Badminton and table tennis, for instance, overhauled its scoring pattern to make it more fan-friendly and fast and furious.
Snooker (and billiards to a little extent) changed itself to attract television audiences and soccer widened itself to balance the basic needs of supply and demand. Even Wimbledon, like Lord's, long known for its rigid compliance to archaic principles, is changing and this year we will get to watch tennis under a retractable roof.
Cricket, on the other hand, has overhauled itself to such an extent that there are now three of its kind even though less than a dozen countries play it. But Formula One has been different in the sense that every alteration to its rules and regulations has invariably courted controversy and proved a long drawn battle between its principal players.
Hence it's not surprising that the same is the case with its latest move to introduce budget caps of £40 million to teams from next year. It has already kicked up a storm and the leading protagonists are gearing up for a long, unwieldy legal battle that can further discredit the sport.
In a way this is nothing new. A few years ago, the changes introduced to the qualifying format was equally chaotic and controversial. Ditto with the cases of cancelling tyre changes during races and the change to the points format. The former was revoked after just one season but the knock-out qualifying format and the new points system have thankfully remained and proving quite successful.
In between, an attempt to introduce a 'winner takes all' rule (the title should go to the winner of maximum races and not to the driver with maximum points at the end of the season) was thwarted.
Now there is talk of cancelling refuelling during races from next season and granting more technical freedom to teams sticking to a budget cap. Many more changes will surely be proposed as the season drags on, but my worst fears are that we may have a catalog of rules but no sport by the end of the year.
Or, we may have a Formula One without Ferrari in it. Which to me is like Hamlet without the Prince of Denmark or Godfather without Don Corleone.
