By BOB PEARCE
When the Formula One circus roars into life again on March 7 in Melbourne, fans will be hoping much has changed.
Michael Schumacher and Ferrari will again be overwhelming favourites and the paddock will still be filled by the rich and beautiful.
But the thousands of spectators lining Albert Park and the millions watching on television should be offered a better spectacle - or so the bosses of the most expensive show on earth are hoping after a series of meetings aimed at restoring lustre to a tarnished sport.
Formula One is a multi-billion-dollar enterprise, a kind of royal tour. But the global economic downturn has affected all professional sports and Formula One is no exception.
Sponsors are harder to find and two teams, Prost and Arrows, have folded.
Ferrari and Schumacher's domination of last year's championship didn't help. Schumacher had sealed the drivers' title after 11 of the 17 races. and the television audience melted away. The disillusion was accentuated when Ferrari played silly games with their domination at the front of the field.
The fans and advertisers reacted, and suddenly the word "crisis" began to be bandied about.
The solution is not simple and is greatly complicated by the nature of the sport.
Formula One is run under the auspices of the Federation Internationale de l'Automobile, the world governing body of motorsport.The commercial rights used to be exclusively in the hands of British entrepreneur Bernie Ecclestone. But he sold off some of his empire and the buyers have since fallen into the hands of their bankers.
Then there are the teams, who run under the Concorde Agreement, a kind of America's Cup protocol on wheels.
The agreement, which runs until 2008, gives teams less than 50 per cent of the profits from Ecclestone's television and other revenues.
The teams have their individual agendas. But these are further complicated by a consortium of major engine manufacturers, including BMW, DaimlerChrysler, Ferrari, Ford and Renault, which effectively power all the front-runners.
The manufacturers have combined in a body called Grand Prix World Championship Series, which threatens to set up a rival to Formula One in 2008.
So when Max Mosley, the British boss of the FIA, announces new rules for the championship, there is no guarantee when, or if, they will come into force.
But as things stand, the Australian Grand Prix should see the following changes:
* A two-hour test session on the Friday morning for Renault, Jordan and Minardi, who could use as many as three cars each. These were the only teams to choose this option in place of private testing elsewhere.
* One-lap qualifying runs on Friday and Saturday in the style of Champ Cars instead of group sessions. In the first session, the cars will run in championship order. In the final session they will go from slowest to fastest.
* Impounding of the cars between final qualifying and race day with work only under supervision. No special qualifying engines allowed.
* Teams will not be allowed to use a spare car unless the main car becomes unusable.
The teams this week backed away from an immediate ban on traction control and automatic gearboxes. But these, and the launch control used in starts, will be banned from the time of the British Grand Prix on July 20.
Car-to-pit telemetry and car-to-driver radio will be banned next season and this year the car-to-driver radio must be available to the television audience.
Because it comes at the start of the season, the Australian Grand Prix has largely been immune from viewer boredom. Last year the race, though won by Schumacher, produced a home-town triumph when Mark Webber, driving for Australian-owned Minardi, finished fifth after half the field was eliminated in a first-lap crash.
Geoffrey Harris from the Australian Grand Prix Corporation can see only improvements ahead.
"We expect to have eight or nine cars out testing on the Friday morning, which is a real bonus," he says.
"Qualifying will be fascinating because conditions can vary so much within an hour.
The best drivers will still come through and my gut feeling is that in a few months the pessimism about Formula One will all turn around.
"I believe that it could come down to tyres. If Michelin upped its game a fraction, Ferrari would no longer dominate."
To ensure that no one wins the championship as quickly again, the points have been extended down to eighth place, with the bonus differential for winning removed.
Peter Burns, who worked 17 years for McLaren before settling in Auckland last year, recalls that the differential for winning was introduced in the 1980s so that it would be difficult to take the championship without winning the most races.
"I still think it is important that the driver who wins most often should be the champion," he says. "Ferrari shouldn't be penalised. It's up to the other teams to get better."
Burns supports the upcoming ban on traction control, if it can be policed. Mosley has offered a US$1 million ($1.83 million) bounty for whistleblowers.
But will it detract from what we see on TV?
To be frank, free-to-air coverage in recent seasons has lagged far behind what the Australians and Television New Zealand provide for V8 Supercars.
All the in-car gizmos were reserved for Ecclestone's pay channel. That has gone belly up and he is negotiating to transfer the extras to free-to-air.
As always, there will be commercial wrangles.
But with a little bit of luck, Formula One will again become a must-see in 2003.
Motorsport: Restoring a winning formula
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