F1 title fight reaches boiling point.

After Lewis Hamilton's disaster at the Italian Grand Prix last weekend, Formula One is poised for it's greatest title run-in in decades.

Mark Webber, Hamilton, Alonso, 2009 Champ Button and Sebastien Vettel are all within one race win of each other. With just 5 races to go and 125 points on the table, the title really is anyone's game.

Next weekend in Singapore won't go very far in deciding anything, unless Vettel has a no score. The track looks set to be another Red-Bull-athon similar to Hungary, unless McLaren's latest "big" update proves more successful than their last. Ferrari are still in the hunt after Alonso's 3rd victory of 2010 7 days ago. However Ferrari may struggle after using their 8th new engine of the season, and using any more new one earns an instant 10 place grid drop, basically ending any chances of winning that race.

The Red Bull team will also hope that their early-season unreliability doesn't return. They would have been over the hill by now in both driver's and constructor's championships by now if they hadn't had Vettel's engine trouble in Bahrain, Vettel break failure in Australia, Vettel failing to finish in Turkey and causing Webber to miss out on a win. Webber's crash in Australia and many more problems too.

McLaren have both drivers at the sharp end of the grid and Hamilton will look to banish the demons of Monza that saw him retire after 4 corners of the race with a broken steering arm following a brush with Massa's Ferrari. He will also look to recapture the form that he had in Belgium when apart from one little adventure in the gravel, he put in a 10/10 performance. His team-mate Button can't be counted out either, and he could benefit most from the engine rules as his smooth driving style takes much less out of the engine than his 4 rivals.

5 races to go, and if anyone tells you that they know who will win, check how much they've had to drink.

And they're off!

Football is back.

Just 8 weeks on from the end of the 19th World Cup, the Premier League and all the other European nations kicked off with a bang last month.

Chelsea kicked off with the biggest bang of all, and they deserve a special mention from me. In their opening two games they managed 2 6-0 thrashings, and then won their 3rd 2-0. Still the only team with a true 100% record (they haven't conceded either)

Across in Italy, the league started 2 weeks after the English, so the early running is still to be made, but currently it is the newly reinforced AC Milan sitting atop the pile after a sound thumping of new boys Lecce. Roma and Inter, last season's protagonists both limped to drab 0-0 draws that will do little to reignite the burning, passionate battle between the two.

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The summer Transfer window was busier than ever, with the Premier League's 25 man squad rule introduced, it meant many more players were sold than previous years. The biggest winners were clearly Manchester City, AC Milan, Juventus and Roma.

City with their new-found and never ending wealth signed a massive amount of stars including Yaya Toure, Kolarov of Lazio and a certain bad tempered Italian, Mario Balotelli.

AC Milan lucked out with the Premier League's new rule when Man City were forced to rid themselves of Brazilian Robinho, who they picked up for almost half the price City paid for him 18 months ago. AC also profited from Barcelona's interesting selling policy, by picking up ex-Inter striker Zlatan Ibrahimovic for a fraction of the £60million-plus-Eto'o deal a few seasons back.

Juventus and Roma showed their power in the summer, with the Turin side adding Fabio Quagliarella, Alberto Aquilani (loan), Simone Pepe (Italy's only good WC2010 player), Jorge Martinez and Milos Krasic from CSKA Moscow. Roma added to the team that pushed Inter to the final weekend of Serie A 09-10 by adding returning giant and possible powerhouse Adriano on a free transfer from Flamengo. They also poached Fabio Simplicio from Palermo, another free signing.

Roma's biggest deal came on deadline day last week, when they managed to capture Marco Borriello on loan from Milan for just £2million, with the option to buy him at the end of the year.

Europe is shaping up very nicely for another exciting season.

Never mention Team Orders in Formula 1....

Hockenheim, Germany. Ferari have just told driver Felipe Massa, currently in 1st place that "Fernando (his teammate, in second) is faster than you, do you understand the message?"

So what, the casual fan would think.

Not in Formula 1. Teams use coded messages to tell their drivers to switch positions, usually because one driver is already further ahead in the championship and needs the points. Usually, nobody complains because it happens in the last few races of the season.

Not with 7 races to go. And never is it as obvious as this. And it has (rightly) been compared to this, also involving Ferrari, which lead to the whole ban on team orders coming in in the first place.

What we are all angry about is this; We all admit these orders happen all the time all over the pit lane, but never this early or this blatantly. What makes matters worse is that Ferrari and Alonso are doing everything they can to prove this was Massa's decision and Massa's alone, despite Massa's in-car data proving he held off to let Alonso through.

This has caused widespread criticism across the sport for a few reasons:

• Spectators paid huge sums of money to see a race, not a fixed result
• The whole idea of a race is that the best driver wins, not the one who needs it more
• Ferrari's denial of any wrong-doing is what seems to be angering most

However, it can be argued that what they did was logical and the right thing to do for the team:

• Massa was 31 points behind Alonso before race started, so Alonso should have won the race to help his championship
• Massa has little chance of winning from where he is, let Alonso claim the points
• Ferrari do not want to have their cars crash into each other while fighting for the lead.

So really, the argument can be fought for both viewpoints. Ferrari though, have made their bed and have to lie in it. They have to defend the indefensible, a job I will never want to do.

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What's your view on the whole "scandal?"

Send an email to "getinsidesport@googlemail.com" or leave a comment below.

Half-time Report: Formula One 2010

Sunday 11th July saw the 2010 Formula 1 season reach the halfway point. And if the second half is anything like the first, what a fantastic season we would have.

So far, we've had 5 Winners from 3 teams, F-Ducts, Teams falling to pieces, cars falling to pieces and plenty of accidents.

At the halfway point, a British one-two is how the Driver's Championship looks, Lewis Hamilton (145-pts) with a 12-point lead over McLaren team mate Jenson Button. The Red Bulls of Mark Webber and Sebastian Vettel lie 3rd and 4th, followed by Fernando Alonso's Ferrari.

One thing never far away from Formula 1 is controversy. This season is no different.

The latest issue to grip the sport is that of the Red Bull driver's relationships with each other and their team. In Turkey, Mark Webber was comfortably leading Vettel, only for the young German to attempt an overtake that resulted in disaster: Vettel out and Webber losing 2 places to the McLaren drivers. This broke the one rule that drivers have, never take out your team mate. Never. Red Bull team boss Christian Horner initially blamed Webber for the accident, despite all evidence pointing at the German.

With their relationship stretched, the team arrived at Silverstone with 2 new front wings for the cars. During final Free-Practice before qualifying on Saturday, Vettel's new front wing had a failure, damaging it "beyond repair."

Tough luck Seb,

But no, Red Bull decided that they would take the other new wing from Webber's car and give it to Vettel. Something like this normally happens when one driver is the 'Number 1' and the other is seen as not as good as the #1.

Not clever, Red Bull.

That decision set off an explosion within the team. Webber was absolutely furious after qualifying, (Vettel set quickest time, Webber 2nd) and this anger carried over to Sunday's race. The two Red Bulls lined up side-by-side and that meant war.

Vettel and Webber almost collided at turn 1, but avoided with Vettel getting a puncture that ultimately ended his race, which Mark Webber easily won.

Webber's message to the team after he took the win?

"Not bad for a number 2 driver."

This will continue to burn, watch this space.

World Cup 2010 - Was it really that good?

How many matches do you actually remember for having lots of footballing genius?

Portugal's 7-0 destruction of North Korea..... ranked 105 in World football?

Italy's 3-2 defeat at the hands of European new boys Slovakia, with Fabio Quagliarella's incredible goal?

There are just 2 games, possibly 3 that stick in my mind. And each of them involved the young German team given no chance by their own country. After a storming start against lowly Australia, a set back followed with a loss to dark horses Serbia. After clearing Ghana, they came against the English.

Believing they could sweep aside the Germans after an awful start was their undoing. Along with some Sunday-league defending from Terry and Co. This was a display in counter-attacking football at it's best. And rarest.

Another was Germany's 4-0 beating of Argentina. Again, fantastic flowing football from Die Mannschaft, but nothing incredibly spectacular from the South Americans.

And the only other match I can remember, that was probably the best, was the 3rd place playoff on Saturday past. Uruguay and Germany were both determined to get the bronze medal, and played like it was the show-piece final in Jo'burg. Brilliant pass and move football from both sides led to 1-1, and then again to 2-2. Then of course, up popped one rusty German in the right place and that was it all over, 3-2 to the young pretenders.

Apart from that, there were plenty matches completely empty of any sort of creativity, skill or simply good football. Algeria v England? France v Uruguay?

However, the worst in my eyes are the Spanish. World Cup winners too. They won their last 16 game 1-0. Their Quarter final, 1-0, their Semi final vs Germany was 1-0. As was the final. This was the team that promised amazing passing football that would rip defences in two, instead, we got Iniesta, Xavi and Alonso passing the ball to each other for 5 minutes, then Villa would miss. And repeat.

To say they deserved to win is almost wrong, they did play the most consistently. Consistently boring. In all, they scored just 8 goals in 7 games. Compared to Germany's 16 in 8, they were poor shooters.

Just a thought amongst all this Spanish praise.