Andre Agassi’s decision to open his soul and tell the world he took drugs and then hoodwinked his governing body, the ATP, into believing his failed drugs test in 1997 was a mere mistake could not have come at a worse time for Australian and Wimbledon champion Serena Williams.

While Agassi has been condemned by players and pundits alike for tainting the image of his sport, tennis authorities have come under fire for not investigating the matter thoroughly and believing Agassi’s lies.

One of the accusations against the ATP was it brushed the whole episode under the carpet as it could not afford to ban one of its biggest draws on the men’s tour.

In light of the Agassi debacle 12 years ago, Williams knows she could be in for some stiff punishment from the International Tennis Federation (ITF) even though the cases are so different.

Williams is in many ways the face of women’s tennis as she has won more grand slams than any other active player - her tally currently standing at 11 - and is also the world number one.

But her foul-mouthed rant at a lineswoman during her U.S. Open semi-final defeat against Kim Clijsters has left the ITF, who run the four grand slam tournaments, facing a real dilemma.

Should they make a stand by banning one of the sport’s biggest stars from taking part in one or more grand slam tournaments? Or should they simply hit Williams with a larger fine than the $10,500 she was handed at Flushing Meadows so that tournaments do not suffer financial consequences by the no-show of the biggest names in women’s tennis.

With tennis, like the rest of the world, trying to survive the effects of the global credit crunch, tournaments rely on the big names to turn up in order to convince the paying public to part with their hard-earned cash.

For the ITF, this saga could not have come at a worse time. And as for Williams, could Agassi’s confessions cost her dear?

PHOTO: Andre Agassi of the U.S. prepares to serve during his tennis exhibition match against compatriot Pete Sampras at Venetian Macao in Macau October 25, 2009. REUTERS/Bobby Yip

A lot of people are getting quite excited about the possibility of Michael Schumacher coming out of retirement to race for the new Mercedes F1 team (formerly known as champions Brawn) at the age of 41.

The German’s spokeswoman Sabine Kehm feels it is highly unlikely while Mercedes said at the weekend that “some speculations are nothing but dreams which will not come true” (although note the carmaker did not specifically say this particular piece of speculation was one of them).

Team principal Ross Brawn, who is currently on holiday, has been quoted by Germany’s Bild newspaper as saying that “the media are trying to put together a dream. Michael would have returned to the cockpit for Ferrari, but only temporarily. He has no ambitions to start a new career.”

Formula One supremo Bernie Ecclestone told the BBC on Sunday that he was “very doubtful” about any such comeback, however appealing it might be.

On the other hand, Kehm told Britain’s Times newspaper on Monday that “I can see a lot of tempting things in it for Michael, but I can also see a lot of non-tempting things. I don’t know.

“It is as it was in August when you couldn’t tell what was going to happen. Then I was convinced Michael would never come back and suddenly all the circumstances were right for him,” she added, referring to the champion’s abortive attempt to return as a stand-in for injured Brazilian Felipe Massa at Ferrari.

A Schumacher comeback has a lot of media appeal — witness all the stories — and not least because McLaren will have two British world champions next season in Jenson Button and Lewis Hamilton.

That would revive the old Britain v Germany rivalry on a team level as well as a personal one.

Mercedes motorsport vice-president Norbert Haug and the team’s chief executive Nick Fry both had chances to put the record straight about Schumacher in a conference call with reporters to announce Nico Rosberg’s signing on Monday and they ducked them.

One had to feel sorry for Rosberg, appearing for the first time as a Mercedes driver only for the opening question to be about Schumacher.

In fact, Haug actually stoked the speculation by suggesting that the second driver would be a very good news story for Formula One, just like the Mercedes takeover of Brawn and Rosberg’s signing.

It is hard to see how Nick Heidfeld or Adrian Sutil would fit that billing, even if they are also Germans.

The Brawn management response in itself rings alarm bells, although there could be any number of explanations.

One might be that Mercedes and Brawn, piqued by Button’s defection to McLaren last week, want to regain the media spotlight and such speculation does the trick.

Another could be that as soon as one driver is ruled out, the media bandwagon moves on and targets another. And it is always good for a team to show they have options to keep a lid on salary demands.

Or could it be, perhaps, that Schumi — who incidentally has a three-year consultancy agreement with Ferrari — really is a target? Time alone will tell.

PHOTO: Former Ferrari Formula One driver Michael Schumacher of Germany attends a news conference in Beijing, Nov. 3, 2009. REUTERS/Jason Lee

Toyota team principal Tadashi Yamashina was in tears as the Japanese company announced it has withdrawn from Formula One with immediate effect.

Japan has deserted motorsport on mass during the economic crisis (Honda and Bridgestone to name just two).

Company president Akio Toyoda apologised for the team’s failure to record a single race victory since joining F1 in 2002 despite an estimated annual budget of around $300 million.

“It was a very difficult but unavoidable decision,” he told a news conference in Tokyo.

The departure opens the door for BMW Sauber’s new Swiss owners to take their place on the grid.

PHOTO: Toyota Motorsport Chairman and Team Principal Tadashi Yamashina cries at a news conference at the company’s headquarters in Tokyo November 4, 2009 REUTERS/Issei Kato

 Abu Dhabi’s new Formula One circuit has given the Middle East seemingly unbeatable bragging rights as home to the world’s most modern and lavish track.

“No one is going to top this,” commented Formula One supremo Bernie Ecclestone on his arrival at Yas Marina and he may well be right.

Spending billions of dollars cannot buy atmosphere, of course, and Abu Dhabi is a long way from Silverstone, Spa and Monza, but the signs so far are that the locals are pretty passionate about their motorsport.

“Monaco, Montreal and Singapore do different things fantastically,” Khaldoon al Mubarak, chief executive of the Abu Dhabi government’s business development company as well as Manchester City soccer club, told the National newspaper.

“Our hope is Abu Dhabi can take it to a whole new level.”

The circuit is an obvious sign of that intention but it is not built in isolation.

Next door to the circuit, the first building phase of the world’s first Ferrari theme park has been completed with the second due to start as soon as the grand prix is over.

The scale of this project is simply immense, as I discovered when I donned a hard hat for a guided tour of the work in progress, and it will further embed Formula One in the local consciousness. (more…)

Jenson Button defied his critics and made a boyhood dream come true on Sunday as Britain’s 10th Formula One world champion.

Written off by some in recent years as an overpaid one-hit wonder with playboy tastes, the Briton capped an extraordinary season with a title that ranks as one of the sport’s most astonishing turnarounds.

The 29-year-old Brawn GP driver lined up in Australia in March with just one win under his belt from 153 starts but with a dominant car that he would go on to describe as “outrageous” and a “monster”.

He went on to win six of the first seven races and laid the foundations for a championship that would elevate him to the same level as the likes of compatriots Nigel Mansell and Lewis Hamilton.

Starting 14th in Brazil, with closest rival and Brawn team mate Rubens Barrichello on pole position, the title seemed destined to go down to the wire in Abu Dhabi. (more…)

Felipe Massa won a lot of respect in Brazil a year ago when, having missed out on the Formula One championship by a single point after winning his home grand prix, he proved gracious in defeat.

“I know how to win,  I know how to lose,” he said.

The Ferrari driver returns to Interlagos as a spectator and special guest this weekend after suffering life-threatening head injuries in Hungary in July.

He will not race again until next season, but is on the mend.

Some, however, are asking whether Massa is the man that he was. Not physically, since he has been given a clean bill of health, but in that he appears to have become far more outspoken in his absence.

He suggested early on that Jenson Button was buckling under the pressure of leading the championship — a fair enough point of view — and that he had been ‘robbed’ of the title himself last year by the Renault race-fixing scandal.

He told reporters after his first day back in a Formula One car in Italy this week that he was “the same bastard as before”, a somewhat jarring expression from someone typically more courteous than cussing.

Massa then capped it all on his return to Brazil when he told local reporters that he was sure his future Ferrari team mate Fernando Alonso, despite the Spaniard being cleared of all blame by the governing FIA and denying any involvement, must have known all about what Renault were up to in Singapore last year.

That may have been an off-the-cuff comment not intended for publication but it caused a storm in the F1 world, with Ferrari swiftly putting out a clarification on their website.

Massa’s compatriot Rubens Barrichello, who is challenging Brawn team mate Button for the title in the last two races, had a simple explanation when I asked him whether he felt his friend had changed.

“I don’t think he has. I think he’s been the same person and all my wishes, when I was at the hospital, were that he was the same guy,” he replied.

“After I saw him with my own eyes and I saw that he was the same, I wished that he could drive the same way, and he went to Fiorano and did that.

“From all the people that I’ve spoken to and to himself, it looked like he got into the car and on the third lap he was on the pace.

“But there is one fact that in Formula One if you’re not travelling with everyone all the time and not hearing what the same people are talking about, you just get different ideas and maybe you’re flying on your own ideas,” added the Brazilian.

“He’s been out…and then he comes back in and talks about something and it becomes a lot more important.

“For me, it’s just the fact that he’s been out and not living the world that we’re living in.”

Massa will be waving the chequered flag at Interlagos this weekend but maybe we will not see the Felipe Massa of old until he is back in the car again for real.

Even then, we may not. On current form, with Alonso in the other Ferrari, there could be a few sparks next season.

PHOTO: Ferrari Formula One driver Felipe Massa of Brazil smiles after driving a F2007 car during a test at the team’s Fiorano track October 12, 2009. Massa took his first test drive on Monday after he fractured his skull at July’s Hungarian Grand Prix. REUTERS/Ercole Colombo

Jenson Button needs at most six points to clinch the Formula One title in Brazil this weekend and become Britain’s 10th world champion.

If he does wrap it up at Interlagos, a debate that has been going on for some weeks now will only pick up speed — just how does the 29-year-old rate as a champion compared to all the others?

There are some who hold the view that Button will somehow not be a truly worthy champion, their opinions influenced by the Brawn driver’s inability to assert himself in the latter part of the season.

Some might argue that champions like Michael Schumacher, Ayrton Senna or Lewis Hamilton made their greatness evident from the moment they arrived in the sport.

They could add that someone like Button, who had to wait seven years for his first win and scored a total of just nine points in the 2007 and 2008 seasons combined in a dire spell with now-departed Honda, is surely not on a par with them.

Did he simply luck into a dominant car, thanks to rule changes wrong-footing the usual suspects until halfway through the season, or is he being rewarded for his loyalty to a Brawn team that some were writing off as dead and buried back in January?

There is no arguing that, after winning six of the first seven races, Button has struggled. He finished this month’s Japanese Grand Prix in eighth place and is limping agonisingly to the finish, his early advantage seeing him through.

However, he still won those six races pretty emphatically — and he already has one more victory than Hamilton managed last year. Mike Hawthorn, the very first British champion in 1958, bagged the title with just one win.

The championship is fought over 17 races and, however much it riles commercial supremo Bernie Ecclestone, it is points that win the prizes.

Button may not be one of the greats — that is an accolade reserved for a very special few — but he is surely no less worthy than many, if not most, of the champions who have preceded him.

As a driver, as a sportsman and as a person, he ticks the right boxes.

Button could afford to go all out for victory early in the season, but latterly he has needed to think more strategically. It is all part of the game.

“Everyone is looking for him to clinch the championship as quickly as decisively as possible,” says Britain’s 1996 champion Damon Hill. “But it’s his career, his championship campaign and it may be nerve-racking to watch for those of us who are supporting him.

“But he’s the one facing the challenge, he’s the one doing the job. In situations like this, you just have to do what you think is best at the time.”

Button may not need to be on the podium on Sunday, but if he wins the title anyway will that make it any less deserved?

PHOTO: Brawn GP Formula One driver Jenson Button (L) sits with his girlfriend Jessica Michibata after the Japanese F1 Grand Prix in Suzuka, central Japan October 4, 2009. REUTERS/Toru Hanai

In the world of Formula One, it is very hard to keep a secret.

We’ve known for months that Fernando Alonso would be replacing Kimi Raikkonen at Ferrari, a move confirmed on Wednesday.

Insiders also reckoned he had signed a deal a while back, which Alonso himself has revealed, although he said it was originally for 2011.

The only aspect of the move the press did not get right was the length of his deal or his pay packet. Some Spanish newspapers said he would sign for six years when in fact it is for three while various astronomical numbers have been bandied about.

Spain’s Marca said Alonso would be paid around 20 million euros a year, some seven million less than Raikkonen was said to be getting. Ferrari put out a statement which hinted he would not be earning as much as some might have thought given these pressured times.

“Reading certain newspapers one might think that there is a gold rush in Maranello. The numbers talked about have absolutely nothing to do with reality. It’s easy to write numbers, forgetting that the world has changed recently,” it said.

“At Ferrari a lot of calculating is done and attention is not only paid to the costs of the operational structure, but also as far as the drivers are concerned.”

PHOTO: A fan screams with excitement after Renault Formula One driver Fernando Alonso of Spain signed autographs for her as he arrives at the pits before the start of the first practice session of the Singapore F1 Grand Prix at the Marina Bay street circuit Sept. 25, 2009. REUTERS/Vivek Prakash

If Bernie Ecclestone had got his way before the start of the season, Jenson Button might have been crowned Formula One champion in Singapore on Sunday.

The commercial supremo’s plan for the championship to be decided by an Olympic-style medals system, with the title going to the driver taking most golds, would have left Brawn’s Button out of reach.

With six wins in the first seven races, the Briton’s tally cannot now be matched by anyone else.

Singapore winner Lewis Hamilton, Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel and Button’s Brazilian team mate Rubens Barrichello all have two wins with three races left.

The only interest in Sunday’s Japanese Grand Prix would have been the constructors’ championship and it is pretty much a given now anyway that Brawn will win it in their first full season.

Brazil and Abu Dhabi, making its debut with what promises to be the most lavish race yet, would have been irrelevant in the grand scheme of things.

As it is, Button has edged 15 points clear of Barrichello and could win the title at Suzuka. But the battle could equally very well go down to the wire as well. There is still plenty at stake.

Of course, this is all assuming that under the winner-takes-all system, drivers would have raced in the same way as they have this season where points are what really matter — and that’s a big if.

“If my aunt had balls, she’d be my uncle,” as David Coulthard likes to say.

Watching Button ease back behind Vettel in Singapore on Sunday, despite the Red Bull being clearly stricken after shedding various bits and pieces, gave some justification to Ecclestone’s view that medals would at least get drivers racing, although maybe not for fourth place.

Does anyone still think the winner-takes-all medals system is a good idea?

PHOTO: Brawn GP Formula One driver Jenson Button of Britain smiles while walking on the grid before the Singapore F1 Grand Prix at the Marina Bay street circuit September 27, 2009. REUTERS/Vivek Prakash

Mika Hakkinen has the air of a man who has seen it all before.

He stared death in the face when only an emergency trackside tracheotomy saved his life after a crash at the Australian Grand Prix.

He returned to Formula One to win the drivers’ title in 1998 and 1999. He enjoys homes in Monte Carlo, France and his native Finland.

And he is sitting on my knee.

Well, almost.

Terry Dolphin has been building, servicing and fine-tuning high-performance racing cars for 30 years. He paints this picture best.

“This is the same technology that won the World Championship in the mid-90s,” he smiles genially, glancing admiringly at the sleek, black Supercar baking in the Singapore sun while Hakkinen gets into his racing gear in a tent next door.

“The sort of car your Ayrton Sennas and your Damon Hills were driving. It’s quick. You’re talking nought-to-sixty (miles per hour) in under two-and-a-half seconds. Top speed, this will go more that 200 miles per hour and you’re pulling more than 3Gs in braking and cornering force. Depending on set-up,” he added.

Set-up. The very two words fermenting in my mind.

“Be prepared… it gets hot in there,” Terry continued needlessly. “The temperatures top 100 degrees in there and plus, you’re wearing that big suit, gloves, balaclava, helmet… and you are strapped in tight,” he grinned.

“If that’s not bad enough, you have got an engine bolted directly on to the back of that bathtub you are lying in. Every piston that pumps, you are going to feel the vibration.”

Terry continues to talk about valves and hydraulics, but I place the yellow foam ear plugs in their new home. They were the springy, plastic guardians standing between my ear drums and the teeth-loosening roar of the Supercar engine situated centimetres from my head.

The car, and Hakkinen, are in Singapore ahead of Sunday’s F1 grand prix to promote Johnnie Walker’s responsible drinking programme. ‘Never drink and drive’, Hakkinen tells me, and what better way to illustrate his assertion that control of a car must always mean total control — not just sort-of-control — than with an eye-widening, stomach-churning race across shimmering Tarmac.

Like the Viet-Cong and their considerate widening of the Cu Chi tunnels to allow the corpulent visitor to squeeze through in a rough approximation of the slender tunnel rats of more than 30 years ago, they’ve expanded the cockpit of this machine. But not by much.

Two mechanics lower me down into the reclined black leather seat and I ease first my hips through the housing and then twist to fit my shoulders under the wing.

Seconds later Mika is with us.

Striding across the track in his black racesuit, black gauntlets and black boots, topped off with his distinctive blue-and-white helmet, the Finn steps onto his seat — which pretty much overlaps mine — and slides his 1.79m frame down into the driving position.

A grin I assume was meant to be comforting crinkled the double world champion’s eyes through his visor and, after Terry and his colleagues clipped the steering wheel in front of the Finn, suddenly the engines screams and cones and barriers loom large.

The speed you anticipate.

It is fast, but the brain compensates for that, feeding exhilarating doses of adrenaline into the system but keeping fear at bay.

The braking and cornering, though, that is what prickles the skin and causes the flinches.

This, I sense, is what Hakkinen enjoys when driving at — for him — pedestrian speeds.

We head into a corner at almost impossible velocity and stick to the ground as we maneuver round it. As a party piece, my speed king chauffeur deliberately wheelspins our back end away.

Were the engine not screaming in my ears I would hear the Finn chuckling. Instead I make do with him grabbing my hand and shaking it in an amused and excited waggle of friendship.

Hands back on the wheel, please, Mika — total control is everything.

For video of me and Mika, cosy in the cockpit, click below: