Left field

Will “fit and happy” Woods rediscover on-course cheer?

The photos depict it, Rory McIlroy’s been saying it, now it’s up to the Abu Dhabi Golf Club to confirm that at long last, Tiger Woods is happy and fighting fit again.

That the 14-times major champion should choose the European Tour’s first big event of the season to make his 2012 debut in favour of one of his favourite courses at Torrey Pines in California is one thing.

Woods’ results at Torrey Pines have been astonishing – seven wins including his last major at the U.S. Open in 2008 – while his rare forays to the Middle East have been equally impressive, two Dubai Desert Classic wins in six attempts with only one finish outside the top five.

More noticeable however is the American’s demeanour, critics say his huge appearance fee in the UAE capital might have something to do with it, but surely money no longer lures Woods. He wants to start winning again.

Whether he can do that in Abu Dhabi, with the spotlight firmly on him and a quality field including the world’s top four players, remains to be seen.

Should he find the going tough perhaps we will see the same surly Woods stomp around the course, spitting freely and winning no fans with his attitude.

But again, just like the money, surely those days are behind him.

Formula One’s youngest world champion was always a man in a hurry

From the very first moment he arrived in Formula One as a curly-haired teenager, new world champion Sebastian Vettel was a young man in a hurry.

The 23-year-old Red Bull Driver, who became the youngest winner of the drivers’ championship with victory in Sunday’s Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, has set records from day one.

Within seconds of his debut in Friday practice at the 2006 Turkish Grand Prix, he had been fined for speeding in the pit lane. The youngest driver to take part in a practice session, in quick succession he became the youngest to score a point, youngest to secure pole position and youngest to win a grand prix.

Born in the same year that Red Bull sold their first can of energy drink, the race ace with the look of a tousled schoolboy and cheeky grin has always seemed a marketing match made in heaven for the newly crowned Formula One constructors’ champions.

Irreverent, with a penchant for British humour and the Beatles, there has never been any doubt that Vettel is Austrian-owned Red Bull’s blue-eyed boy.

Helmut Marko, the former grand prix racer who is a close advisor to Red Bull’s billionaire owner Dietrich Mateschitz, has championed his cause from an early age and was on the podium, showered in champagne, as Vettel celebrated the biggest win of his life on Sunday.

Vettel, only the second man to win the title for Germany after Michael Schumacher, has also saved the best for last, for the moment when it truly mattered.

When will F1 have a Middle Eastern driver?

 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.

Anyone still want medals to decide F1 title?

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.