Pit Stop | Drama off the track spoiled F1 season opener

All sport is pointless. When you look at it objectively, it seems pretty stupid to spend 90 minutes trying to put a glorified pig's bladder in the back of a net. In the greater scheme of things, there must be better ways to spend your time than knocking seven bells out of each other just to get a rugby ball over a random line. For that matter, when you look at it like that, driving a car around in circles 50 or 60 times just to be the fastest is plain daft.

Of course, it isn't pointless. It isn't about the objective of the game at all. It's about mastering a skill, having fun, making friends and occasionally (if you're lucky), showing everyone else you are the best at this pointless exercise. There's a lot of satisfaction to be had from it and sometimes (again, if you're lucky) cash to be made.

Sport is also about spectators. To take a dispassionate view, it seems a bit odd to pin so much emotional capital on a team and a sport. There are more important things in life. Yet the experience also brings a lot to the ardent fan.

There's the tribalism of supporting a team in the age of individualism and a chance to let off steam in an environment where getting overexcited isn't frowned upon. It also brings elation (just ask the Kiwi cricket fans at the Cricket World Cup) and despair (any England rugby fan at the final whistle at Twickenham last weekend).

Which brings us to Formula One. The sport isn't immune from providing the highs and lows of emotions, it can certainly grandstand and provide peerless spectacle, but in Australia as the season opened it was engaged in something else it does very well; shooting itself in the foot.

The build-up to the season opener should have been all about the anticipation of the first race of the season in the stunning setting of Albert Park. Instead, attention was focused on a Melbourne courtroom as once again Formula One got litigious.