Worthy winner, worrying season

Ridiculous gimmicks like double points were not necessary in the end. Even without this last-race rule, Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg would have taken the world championship fight right down to the wire. And the result, thankfully, would not have been any different under a scoring system designed by the numerate.

In a season with one clearly superior car, the Mercedes W05 plus its new hybrid power unit, its drivers provided the competition that no other team could. For whatever reasons, Red Bull Racing, Mark Webber and Sebastian Vettel could not provide fans the same service during Vettel's 2011 and 2013 walkovers. Rosberg magnaminously said that 11-time race-winner Hamilton deserved 2014's title, "because he was the slightly better driver," before promising "I can take another step."

Not only did these 29-year-olds compete closely in 2014, they defied their own stereotypes: few would have expected the calculating Rosberg to out-qualify Lewis Hamilton - more commonly renowned as a one-lap specialist - over the course of the season. On race days, meanwhile, it was the presumed "hothead" Hamilton pressuring Rosberg into mistakes, for instance at Monza and in Sochi.

There was tension too: Rosberg's Monaco qualifying mistake (ploy?) that scuppered Hamilton's lap and sealed pole position - and their renowned crash at Spa. As for Hamilton, his more ferocious side could be seen in his reluctance to share his data, and when he rejected a team order in Hungary asking him to let Rosberg - on a different strategy at the time - go past.

Rosberg's mechanical woes might have robbed us of a thrilling final round - but another Silver Arrows' showdown at the front would have been for pride only, not the world championship. No matter what, Hamilton would have claimed second, and the title.

F1's double points fad only unfairly affected Sebastian Vettel's season; and the four-time champion probably won't care about losing fourth in the championship to impressive sophomore Valtteri Bottas. After four years at the top, what's fifth instead of fourth, especially as a new dawn beckons with Ferrari?

As for the race in Abu Dhabi, it was as underwhelming as expected. But as a crucial contributor to F1's finances, the sandy sleeping pill is the season's curtain call. With F1 ever more dependent on the money that race hosts - usually national governments, either directly or indirectly - pay for a spot on the calendar, it's little wonder so much effort is made to raise such a track's profile. Consider the first-ever Russian Grand Prix in Sochi, complete with Vladimir Putin on the podium, one week before the also-taxpayer-supported US Grand Prix in Austin.

Even with F1 revenues on the rise, its teams are on the breadline. Marussia, now in administration, couldn't raise the funds to race in Abu Dhabi. The team may disappear despite injured driver Jules Bianchi's brilliant drive to ninth at Monaco, winning Marussia its first ever points. Fellow backmarkers Caterham made the final grid on Sunday, but only after rattling their online begging cup at loyal fans around the world in a crowdfunding drive.

The smaller teams are close to revolt, arguing that the division of prize money - run on a performance-related system - is not currently fair. Force India, Sauber, Lotus, maybe even Williams: with Marussia and Caterham gone, a new group of "backmarkers" would soon emerge.

Commercial supremo Bernie Ecclestone has offered alternative spreads of prize money in the past - including a completely equal split between all teams - but finding a balance that satisfies the mighty and the minnows alike is not easy.

Ecclestone's biggest off-track challenge of the season ended with no fanfare in Munich. The Bavarian courts controversially offered him a 100-million-euro magic wand to wipe his legal slate clean, stopping his bribery trial in its tracks. Perhaps Ecclestone's interpretation of events, namely that the court saw a chance for cash despite no real chance of conviction, is a fair appraisal of one of Germany's less popular legal rules - but would the truly confident defendant have paid such a sum?

The 2014 season was - rightly - billed as a new era for F1. It has brought 21st-century engines, a new dominant team, the Hamilton-Rosberg rivalry, and some of the best wheel-to-wheel racing in years.

New stars like Ricciardo and Bottas have established themselves, and old dogs like Felipe Massa and Jenson Button learned new tricks in their bids to stay in the series. For 2015, Honda returns supplying McLaren's engines, Sebastian Vettel will suit up in red, and the new generation of Daniel Ricciardo and Daniil Kvyat will seek to bring Red Bull back to the front. Maybe Williams could again overperform powered by that three-pointed star?

And Hamilton and Rosberg will still be two evenly-matched teammates, in their prime, going toe-to-toe in silver.

Those are the happy headlines ahead of the 2015 season. I'd rather not contemplate the negative ones threatening to darken this winter break.