With only ten days to go to the start of the 2003 season, Formula One is still in the same turmoil it has been for the past months. As if the sweeping and sudden changes to the regulations were not enough, the sport is also facing a court battle between its governing body and two of the top teams. Atlas F1's Roger Horton reflects on what to expect when the politics make way for the sport next month

In just ten days, the opening race of the 2003 season will take place in many Formula One people's favourite city: Melbourne, Australia.

Melbourne is a laid back place where everyone is a 'mate' and the bushies love to tell you that 'everything will be alright.' After months of negative headlines about a sport in turmoil, there will be a whole lot of high-powered folks in the FIA, FOM and the team bosses - with millions invested in what used to be the cash cow called Formula One - hoping that that Aussie saying comes true for them.

The odds against a totally soft-landing, with all the current teams surviving intact in the longer term, are not good. But should the new qualifying format and innovative fuel regulations - on show in Melbourne for the first time - prove to be effective and produce an exciting 'show', then the air of gloom and negativity that has surrounded the sport for some time might well be lifted.

For years the factors that worked in the teams' favour - cash surpluses and rising asset prices - are now working directly against them. Many teams are now cash flow negative and the franchise value that once propped up their asset values are now a distance memory. For both Eddie Jordan and Paul Stoddart, with the spectre of the demise of Prost and Arrows still an all too present recent memory, the question of how much good money to throw after bad has to be their most pressing current concern.

The deteriorating financial prospects of the mid field outfits prompted FIA president Max Mosley to warn that Formula One faced collapse unless radical changes were introduced. "One or two of the independent teams might have stopped, while the bigger [teams] might not have been able to run a third car and they might have stopped as well. If we had left everything as it was, the whole thing could have spiralled," he recently explained.

But already McLaren and Williams have given notice of their intentions to fight the changes and have accused Mosley of trying to 'dumb down' the sport. Their stand, in turn, has drawn heavy criticism from several of their fellow team owners. Welcome to the wonderfully united world of Formula One where the Piranhas prefer to savage each other than outsiders. The Melbourne Paddock will indeed be an interesting place to observe the politics of Formula One in all its glory.

Whatever the rights and wrongs of Mosley's new rules, it has become glaringly obvious that the way Formula One currently governs itself - through the application of the semi secret Concorde Agreement - no longer works effectively. Bernie Ecclestone's control over everything that happens in F1 is no longer absolute and there are too many voices vying to be heard. This has led to the current inertia in facing up to the changes that need to be made.

What other major sporting series or tournament, for example, gives so much power to the participants and allows them to block changes that are perceived to disadvantage them? And what other serious sporting authority only gets to publish its regulations some three weeks before the action is due to start? Can you imagine, for example, major changes being introduced to the rules of soccer just a few weeks prior to a World Cup kick-off?

It was in Melbourne just last year that the row erupted between Stoddart and Arrows owner Tom Walkinshaw over the latter's attempt to buy the remnants of the defunct Prost outfit. Now the aggressive Scot Walkinshaw has lost not only Arrows, but its parent TWR to liquidation as well, a victim of over ambition and under achievement, which, in the current financial climate, can swiftly humble the once rich and powerful. The message is clear for all to see, except those blinded by their own personal ambitions and agendas.

It was also in Melbourne last year that the opening shots in the FIA's quest for changes in the rules to cut cost were fired. Even back then, just sampling all the different reactions up and down the pitlane, it was obvious that reaching a consensus was going to be well nigh impossible. Now, one year on, Mosley has clearly lost patience with the team bosses' inability to see past their own narrow self interest, and although not all his suggestions for change will survive in their present form, the qualifying and fuel rule changes in effect for Melbourne are a good start.

Raise the question of predictable races and lack of overtaking in Formula One with a technical director or engineer and you are always struck by the withering logic of their responses. How can you have overtaking when you spend the best part of two days making sure the fastest cars are on the front of the grid? And, with today's cars being so impressively reliable, of course the order after qualifying is almost always the same as the order after the race. OK, if you have a season like 1999 or 2000 - with the performance advantage swinging narrowly back and forth between McLaren and Ferrari - then you have a formula to keep up the interest, although that is still not a guarantee of exciting individual races.

The new qualifying format throws up so many question marks that it may well be many races into the season until the teams fully work out all the new computations. And how smart does the decision of some of the teams to limit their testing in return for extra running during the race weekend look now? Again I suspect that it will be well into the season until we have the answer, and isn't a little unpredictability a good thing for F1 after three or so years of almost rigid results that were largely a foregone conclusion?

Of course the fastest car and driver combination is still the most likely to win. But at least now enough artificial hurdles have been put in their way to make sure that it will be much harder to have the pole-win, pole-win combination that saw many thousands forsake the sport last year. Now, with an effective 'two-day' qualifying system there is at least twice the chance that the weather could intervene to shake up the grid order, not to mention the almost endless fuel strategy combinations.

The 'one lap' format will once again favour some drivers more than others. Michael Schumacher, the master at gauging grip levels by the seat of his pants, should be a big winner. Other drivers - like Jacques Villeneuve, Giancarlo Fisichella, Juan Montoya, Jarno Trulli and perhaps the precocious Kimi Raikkonen, who are 'explosive' qualifiers - should also benefit. The downside is, of course the huge penalty that drivers like these will pay for any mistakes.

By contrast the super smooth-build-up-to-it-gradually drivers like Olivier Panis and Jenson Button might struggle for speed against their teammates but benefit over the season for their consistency. For newcomers like Ralph Firman and Cristiano da Matta the new qualifying format could be as big a setback to their careers as were the changes that so stymied Michael Andretti during his ill fated attempt at Formula One back in 1993. Timing can sometimes be everything and to be making a career debut in these circumstances is a tough break.

Either way it introduces a whole new skill set into Formula One that many jaded followers will welcome. For many purists change is often an anathema, and some will agree with Sir Frank Williams and Ron Dennis that the sport is being 'dumbed down,' but in truth F1 sold out its traditions many years ago to the great God TV and the money it brought to the sport. Williams and Dennis are, without doubt, among the most genuine 'racers' in the Paddock and deserve the riches their success has brought them. But if the meritocracy they so clearly support is applied to F1 in the current climate, then they - along with Ferrari and whichever car manufacturer decides that F1 is still worth supporting - will race only amongst themselves, and an 'elitist' sport of F1 racing could well slide into irrelevance.

And let's not forget that in the background to all the politics and aggravation lurks the ongoing threat to the sport posed by the carmakers' company GPWC; a concept that is nothing more than a grab for power and control that could well die out as the executives whose brainchild it was move on or out and the carmakers' share price rises or falls. It is against this background that the FIA's push to regain control of the sport makes the most sense. Better a bunch of Eddie Jordans, Paul Stoddarts, Frank Williamses and Peter Saubers, difficult and cantankerous though they may be, than a sport ruled by faceless boards whose priority it is to return capital to their shareholders and not run a racing series.

The changes on show in Melbourne are, of course, just the first many already 'agreed' in an attempt to spice up the show and ultimately reduce costs for the teams. But will the new format actually achieve its main objective and actually bring Ferrari to the back of the field? The fact that I, and perhaps millions of others around the world, are actually seriously asking the question is the first vindication for the FIA's stance. Now it's up to the other teams and fate to do their part. When the lights go out in Melbourne, it really is time for all the bullshit to stop.