Same song, difference verse.

Yesterday, I mentioned I had never seen a rugby match. Not so much because I don’t like rugby, but because I do not follow it and it is unfamiliar to me.

Then we get to sports I know well, perhaps even quite well, which I would prefer not to see, going forward.

Formula One racing is at the top of the list.

The F1 circus stopped in my home town of Long Beach, California, for eight consecutive years, through 1983, and I saw several of those while working in San Bernardino.

Enough to know what I was looking at. Enough to know that I would rather see the stock cars of Nascar than watch the open-wheel guys on parade for a couple of hours. And I am no big Nascar fan, either.

I am put in mind of F1 because the final race of the 2016 calendar goes off this Sunday, the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, and for the previous seven editions of the event I was paid to pay attention, and did, while working for The National in Abu Dhabi.

Now, I think of the meager gifts F1 is bestowing on Abu Dhabi this year.

–The championship is not clinched. Often does not work out this way (such as in 2009, 2011, 2013, 2015), even with Abu Dhabi having always been the last race (or second-last) on the schedule. Of late, things often get wrapped up early because the best car and driver usually is the best all the way through.

–The championship is not decided. Did I mention that? Nico Rosberg clinches his first championship if he can finish third. His Mercedes teammate, Lewis Hamilton, clinches his fourth championship if he wins and Rosberg finishes fourth or worse. Considering Rosberg has finished as poorly as fourth only five times in 20 races, and not since July 31, don’t bet the farm on a Hamilton season championship.

–The race is held when the weather is becoming milder in the UAE. Last Sunday in November is a good date for this race because any earlier, you risk cooking drivers as they sit in their cars. The first GP in Abu Dhabi, 2009, was on November 1, and the drivers suffered.

It’s the same old same old, on the track. One team, Mercedes, has dominated, with their two drivers winning 18 of the 20 races so far. Nine each. The other race wins went to Red Bull drivers Daniel Riccardo and Max Verstappen. Reminding us it is possible, theoretically, for someone other than the Mercedes guys to get the checkered flag.

That makes for three successive champions for Mercedes, Hamilton having won the previous two. And before that Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel won four in succession.

(Meanwhile, the top motors competition in the U.S., Nascar, this season had four guys with a chance to win in the last of 36 races. And 12 drivers won at least one race. Nine won at least two.)

The key in Abu Dhabi will be who qualifies for the top two. It ought to be Hamilton and Rosberg and if, on Sunday, those two get through the first 15 seconds of the race OK, Rosberg will be your champion unless his car breaks — he wins unless two other guys finish ahead, probably from the trio of Riccardo, Verstappen and Vettel. But it is difficult to pass on the Yas Marina track, and harder still when the guy in front of you has been faster all year.

Even F1 fans, whose expectations of white-knuckle finishes already are low, would prefer a few more possible outcomes from the 21st race of their season.

But F1 doesn’t seem worried about 1) the lack of competition at the top or 2) the lack of competition at the back. (Only 11 teams and 22 cars are competing.)

It would help if Ferrari went back to being Ferrari or if McLaren went back to being McLaren. Having three or four teams competitive at once.

Ah, fantasy.

Competition is not a condition of modern F1. Which is why I am more likely to go to my second rugby match rather than see another F1 race.