F1's for Hamilton to lose

On the face of it, there is little that connects the formerly genteel sport of cricket with the high-octane preening circus that is Formula 1.

But ever since F1 decided the final race of the season should be worth double points, there has been a faint whiff of the Indian Premier League's artificial drama about Sunday's race at the Yas Marina Circuit in Abu Dhabi.

Now derisively known as the "Abu Double", one has to ask what the difference is between the race and the IPL with its shortened boundaries, oversize bats, neutered bowlers, and pitches as flat as Kate Moss's chest.

The irony is that this Baldrickesque cunning plan was hatched to help anyone but Sebastien Vettel retain a realistic chance of winning the world championship going into the final race of the season.

This after the German had won four successive titles.

The catch is that the season in which they decided to implement it happens to be one of the most tightly contested in the history of the sport.

Mercedes' Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg's clashes have made for red-blooded racing, thanks to their bickering, displays of nerve, spectacular mistakes and their bitching and whining.

In between, they also managed to satisfy the purists with some combative wheel-to-wheel stuff in easily the best car on the grid this season. This makes F1's decision to inject some superficial excitement all the more bizarre.

With Hamilton 17 points ahead of his teammate, all he would have needed to do to win on Sunday was finish sixth or higher if Rosberg won. Now the Englishman has to make sure that he finishes second if the German is first at the chequered flag.

That is wrong for me when you look at their records qualifying and racing. Rosberg has outqualified Hamilton 11 poles to seven, while the latter has won 10 races to the former's five.

I know that racing purists feel the quicker driver is the one who gets more poles.

But surely the guy who lays down more consistently fast laps in a race to win it at the end is quicker than the hot lap specialist?

But then again, in a strange way F1's meddling with a more natural outcome of the season is going to work if you take into consideration that Hamilton now has to finish second if Rosberg wins, as opposed to sixth.

It sounds good in theory, but you still have to be worried about your sport's ability to be interesting on its own if you have to introduce artificial measures to generate excitement around it.

This is what Hamilton needs to do:

Scenario one: If Rosberg wins, Hamilton needs second place to clinch the title.

Scenario two: If Rosberg comes second, Hamilton needs fifth.

Scenario three: If Rosberg finishes third, Hamilton requires sixth.

Scenario four: If Rosberg comes fourth, Hamilton needs eighth place.

Scenario five: If Rosberg finishes fifth, Hamilton has to finish ninth.

additional reporting by © The Daily Telegraph