Without taking the moral high ground, I should like to begin by saying that the whinging of Chairman of the Australian Grand Prix Corporation, Ron Brown, left me totally unmoved. Following the event in Melbourne it was not "the punters" who had my sympathy, far from it.

I first remember gambling rearing it's ugly head in F1 back in the early 70s. I found the notion of betting on Grand Prix racing as distasteful then, as I find it now. The very thought of holding a piece of paper on the evening of 1st May 1994 which reads "£100 - Senna to win" is abhorrent to me. No I am afraid that those who choose to gamble on a sport where it's participants may end up paying the ultimate price leaves me totally unmoved. However, I should add that I have yet to hear any "complaints" from gamblers who chose to put their money on Hakkinen!

No, my sympathies go out to the many thousands of people who made their way (at considerable expense) to Melbourne and of course the many millions more who watched the event on television.

I have made clear my feelings regarding the Coulthard/Hakkinen fiasco elsewhere. When Hakkinen made his phantom pitstop - regardless of who was to blame, the "gentlemen's agreement" should have been called off. When he went on to "botch up" his "proper" pitstop, the agreement should have been null and void. I agree that McLaren could have been "totally underhand" and made it look as though Coulthard had a problem... thereby allowing Mika to "reel him in". However, their decision to go for an "in your face" result was in my humble opinion an insult to race fans world-wide.

I totally agree that McLaren blew the opposition away, and not even Schumacher would have had a chance had his engine not given up the ghost. However, when I read about how team orders are not something new, it angers me. You can not compare Monza '56, Aintree '57 or Suzuka '97 to the debacle in Melbourne. These were events in which the outcome of the World Championship was at hand. On each occasion one driver selflessly gave advantage to his team-mate at a critical stage of the championship. If either Hakkinen or Coulthard prove to be as generous come October, I will be very, very surprised for I believe that West McLaren-Mercedes have already decided who's name they wish to see on that particular trophy.

The blame for Melbourne does not lie with McLaren. True the finish was farcical, however that should not detract from what was an awesome display of total domination. There is a very real possibility that in 1998, McLaren could achieve what they so narrowly failed to do in 1988 and win every round of the Championship. Ron Dennis has put together a package that must strike fear into the hearts of all his rivals, and recent testing times indicate the best is yet to come.

Compared to the McLarens, the rest of the field including the mighty Williams and Ferrari were also rans. Of course much of the blame for this lies with the teams in question who have obviously failed to get their sums right. However, the FIA must accept a large proportion of the blame for what could be one of the most decisive championships ever run and possibly the championship that destroys F1 as we know it.

In the week in which we saw that the FIA's new rules had failed to have any genuine impact, we were given further examples of how the FIA is seemingly losing it's grip on reality. I have already dealt with the ideas suggested by the Technical Working Group. These included, overtaking lanes, "short cuts" and reversed grids. In the same week, Max Mosley announced that F1 was thinking of banning Tobacco sponsorship. Yes, after all the hysteria about taking F1 to the far east, etc., and after all that hassle with various governments, Mosley's suggests a U-turn. Of course I'm just a cynical son of a bitch, but that failure to move F1 lock, stock and barrel to the far east as Bernie threatened wouldn't have anything to do with the collapse of their money markets would it? Nah...

Then Max comes up with the idea that he wants to increase the championship to twenty rounds. He cites the fact that by ending Friday practice sessions at events and reducing the amount of testing, the teams could "save" 8 days a year which could be used for four further Grands Prix. He then went on to say how much money the teams waste on testing and practice sessions: "I keep telling them it would be cheaper to just sit there and shred $100 bills," he says. Of course the fact that four extra Grands Prix would bring in a further 25% in revenue has absolutely nothing to do with it... has it? Furthermore, these practice sessions on Fridays preceding the GP might be a waste of time in Mr Mosley's opinion. It is funny, however, that I don't ever remember getting into one free of charge!

No Max, you've got it wrong, totally wrong. I believe in QUALITY not QUANTITY. I am sure that all other race fans would rather have a championship of ten events (held in countries that want them of course) with the best drivers in the best cars fighting for the prize of prizes, than twenty tedious non-events scattered across the globe. Each circuit designed to maximise the advertisers logos rather than the performances of drivers or chassis!

As if to prove how far from reality the FIA are, let me throw some figures at you. The FIA claim that the official global television viewing figure for the 1997 World Championship was 50,732,645,052 this is an improvement of 20% on 1996's total of 40,992,557,185. May I just point out that in 1997, the approximate population of planet earth was 5,771,000,000. Therefore using the FIA's approach to statistics it is clear that my brother is a member of a colony of red ants, my mother is Chinese, whilst my father is an unemployed, left handed, homosexual! Where do they get these figures from? OK they might impress some would-be advertiser with money to burn, but they bear no resemblance to reality.

Television is the life-blood, the very heart of F1. If people stop watching F1 on television, the advertisers will take their money elsewhere. Subsequently, the TV stations stop broadcasting events and money dries up. No more TV/Advertising revenue means no more inflated driver's salaries, no more limitless expenditure on development, no more feeble rules on developing F1 solely for TV viewers. Less advertisers would mean that less advertising space would be required. Hey, that big wing on the back of the car that used carry a tobacco company's name on it... we don't really need it anymore do we? Admit it, it's beginning to sound good, isn't it?

No matter what the FIA say about their viewing figures, they're getting it wrong. Whether people tune in to watch the soaps, sport or my unemployed left-handed homosexual father on Jerry Springer, they all want the same thing. Entertainment. If they're not getting it, they switch off. David Coulthard's biggest mistake in Melbourne wasn't handing over the win to Mika, it was when he said "we're not here to entertain" well sorry David, you're wrong. That's precisely what you are there for. To the people who know the sport inside out, who know the history, the statistics, the passion and the drama it's Formula One. To the great Joe Public sitting at home with his six-pack and pizza... it's entertainment... just like Oprah, Springer and ER. They want excitement, incidents and crashes. They want spins, arguments and rivalries. And, if F1 can't provide these ingredients, they'll go elsewhere. Don't kid yourself David, in my eyes you're a nice guy, fearless and dedicated. However, to the viewing masses your a good looking, over-paid actor in a high octane soap.

In 1998, F1 faces the ultimate test, soccer's World Cup. Unless F1 can raise it's game, it won't get a look in, no matter how the FIA juggle the figures. I'll be honest, if it comes down to watching England play Scotland in the semi-final or watching another McLaren steamroller at Magny Cours... I'll be watching England hopefully hammering the Scots. And there are billions of people out there who will do likewise. After all, you can't reschedule a GP for 9 a.m. or 11 p.m... but I bet it's crossed certain people's minds.

Of course I'm writing this as someone who was lucky enough to see the Australian GP. A quick visit to any of the major F1 newsgroups over that weekend would have revealed the contempt with which race fans are really held.

In an 11th hour move, many viewers in the USA and other parts of the world, lost F1 coverage. Despite "rigorous" bidding, ESPN lost the right to broadcast F1 in the US and were not notified until "late" on Thursday 5th March. In a "helpful" move, Formula One Administration Ltd (guess who) informed Speedvision/Fox late on the same day that their bid had been successful - just hours before the first practice session. This meant that with no publicised schedules, race fans were desperately trying to find where they could get coverage. It is a sad indictment that fans who missed the opening round of the 1998 Championship were subsequently offered a "dubbed" copy of the race - free of charge. This applied to viewers in the US only. Viewers in Canada, Spain, New Zealand and various other parts of the globe will just have to grin and bear it. What a disgraceful and shambolic state of affairs.

When F1 goes digital or fully pay per view, the FIA are going to be in for a real shock. Suddenly they will see their "statistics" for what they are. Casual race fans will not pay to watch events like the recent Australian GP, and it will be down to the "real" race fans to stump up their hard earned. Maybe then the powers that be will sit up and listen.

Without wishing to rub people's noses in it, I should like to tell you about something else we in Britain got during the weekend of the Melbourne event. In order to whet our appetites for the Grand Prix, Channel 4 showed five and a half hours (yes, five and a half hours) of programmes about the life of Stirling Moss. We were given the '61 German and Monaco GPs, the '55 British GP and the '55 Tourist Trophy. It was superb archive material interspersed with Stirling "chatting" with several well known motor sport journalists. Watching this legendary driver and his contemporaries in a mouth-watering array of machinery certainly put the subsequent events in Melbourne in perspective.

Funnily enough, just before the start of the OZ GP, Stirling was asked if he thought Coulthard would ever become World Champion. Stirling sighed and said he thought David was a little too nice, "you've got to be a bit of a bastard". How right you are Stirling, how right you are.

Finally, we all know that the FIA got it wrong. When coming up with the new regulations, surely they would have been better served by liaising with the drivers and designers of the cars rather than concerning themselves with the interests of corporate advertisers. Therefore, I would like you to submit (as briefly) as possible your ideas as to how contemporary F1 could be improved. No matter how outlandish, I want to hear them. If you think that overtaking lanes are a possibility, let me know. I'm not saying that anyone will listen, I'm not sure if they're interested. However, it's a start.