Schumacher may win (again), but this season we saw how great F1 can be, writes Justin Hynes
Barring earthquake, typhoon, or acts of god - such as the kind of mechanical breakdown that hasn't affected him for two years - Michael Schumacher will this Sunday break Juan Manuel Fangio's 46-year-old record and claim his sixth world championship title.
So, presuming Schumacher does do that ever-so-annoying little star jump on the podium on Sunday, where does that leave us? What was the 2003 season about and what's in store for 2004?
The first thing that leaps to mind, is that I really don't mind Schumacher winning this title. I couldn't have said the same thing last year. The guy was just getting on my nerves. Michael, Ferrari, Bridgestone, the whole lot were just insufferable.
This year, Michael taking the title is right, and proper.
Sure many of us wanted Juan Pablo Montoya to win it, just for a change of season and despite the fact that the Colombian comes across as Napoleon in a romper suit.
But up until Indianapolis, he had won just two races, to Michael's five. Raikkonen had only a single victory. And those figures still stand, except for an additional win for Schumacher.
And in part also it's deserved because it could have got away from him. From Austria on Ferrari and Bridgestone were blown into the weeds, by Williams and Michelin. No wins for Schumacher for seven grands prix.
But Ferrari pulled it together, Bridgestone upped their game, or did they?
Here's the most contentious aspect of the season. The tyre war and the pre-Monza firestorm that enveloped the paddock.
Contact patches, tyre shoulders, foggy regulations, protests, rebuttals, threats of court action.
Just as Formula One had dug itself out of one mire, the domination of Ferrari, it was determinedly heaving itself into another.
Now there exists a common perception that the season is indelibly tainted because of Michelin's exploitation of a rule and Ferrari protestations to the FIA.
Yet this has always been the way. Formula One is replete with tales of engineers being liberal with the interpretation of the rules, there are always loopholes, ways to exploit the letter of the law.
Michelin, in developing a tyres that broadened its contact patch when in use, are to be applauded for their genius. And there might just come a time when a tyre that gets even more grip when warm on the road could just save your life.
Ferrari too shouldn't be condemned for protesting, though the words clutching and straws spring to mind. They needed an edge and they found one. Fine. Now it's over and it didn't damage the competition.
Which, this year, was great. It was nip and tuck all they way. We had seven different grand prix winners from five different teams.
We saw more overtaking, more genuine wheel to wheel racing (when it wasn't being insanely penalised by overzealous officials), more dogfights (and a few paddock catfights) than we've had for years.
This past season has been everything that Formula One can be. When it's good it's the most glamorous, thrilling sport in the world.
It's about danger and the excitement risk incites, it's about the glamour and intrigue. And it's about speed, and courage and resilience and individual pride. And some vague sense of honour among men who swagger through it all like fighter pilots from a more honourable age, greeting each with salutes moments before joining combat, offering each other grudging respect. There is no other sport like it.
Roll on Melbourne. The best show in town could get better again.