Under the probably unnecessary 2010 rules, British Superbikes has now entered the Showdown phase. In brief: only the top six can now win the title, and they’ve had their points broadly equalised.

Those six aren’t exactly who I would have predicted. Both HM Plant Honda riders – Ryuichi Kiyonari and Josh Brookes – are there, as expected, as is Tommy Hill on the Worx Suzuki. Michael Rutter (Riders Ducati) would have been a fair bet, but the surprise is that not just one, but both Relentless Suzuki riders – Michael Laverty and Alistair Seeley – are through. It’s Stuart Easton and James Ellison – both Swan Honda – who are conspicuous by their absence.

Anyway, who’s going to win? It was illustrative for the BTCC, so let’s have a look at a graph of cumulative points by race for each of the riders in the Showdown.

There’s an argument that anything could happen, as effectively only seven races will decide the championship. But what does the graph say?

It would be a brave man who would back Rutter, Laverty or Seeley: all three have been fairly consistent to date, rather than showing occasional bursts of point-scoring, which might suggest a potential upset over the remaining meetings.

But it’s almost unbearably close between the other three in the Showdown. Hill started strongly, had a bit of a dip, but is right back on form now. Brookes and Kiyonari both struggled early on. Brookes quickly improved and was the man benefiting most during Hill’s dip; Kiyonari took a bit longer to get up to speed, but is probably the man with most momentum right now.

But my hunch? Brookes.

It was just after Sebastian Vettel speared into Jenson Button during Sunday’s Belgian Grand Prix that the word ‘impetuous’ sprung to mind, and naturally I lobbed my thought at Twitter. I wasn’t alone in having that thought.

It wasn’t long before Martin Brundle used the word to describe Vettel in the BBC commentary. Then after the race it was Ron Dennis’s turn, and James Allen applied generous coatings of the word yesterday, in writing about Vettel.

So Martin Whitmarsh may have labelled Vettel the ‘Crash Kid’, but is impetuous more accurate? I thought I’d get a definition:

1. Acting or done quickly and without thought or care
2. Moving forcefully or rapidly

You couldn’t hope for a more perfectly apt description of Vettel at the weekend, could you? He acted quickly without thought or care; and moved forcefully and rapidly.

Impetuous: a lovely, snug fit of a word.

Well that was certainly a Belgian Grand Prix, wasn’t it? Rain and everything.

The Good

• It started very well, with an action-packed first lap. It was almost too much to take on board, so I’m not sure I retained any of it. Breathless.
• The relative strengths of different cars were nicely highlighted. Some of the best examples were between Liuzzi in the Force India, which loves the straights, and Vettel’s Red Bull Racing, which delights in the fast corners. Vettel first took Liuzzi, then Liuzzi took the place back. Great stuff.
• Lewis Hamilton was pretty excellent, particularly when he went into the gravel on slick tyres as the rain started to come down late in the race, but managed to keep it moving and out of the tyre barrier. A well deserved victory.

The Bad

• Very bad luck for Rubens Barrichello, celebrating his 300th race, who got caught out by a spot of rain early on and took himself out of the race when he smacked into Alonso.
• Fernando Alonso had better luck, coming away from that virtually unscathed. He was less fortunate in the rain later though, spinning out of the race all on his own.
• Jenson Button was another man to suffer in the wet conditions, but through no fault of his own: it was Vettel who lost control trying to overtake Button, but it was Button who went out of the race.
• It was Sebastian Vettel’s fault, but I think it’s harsh to say that he was dangerous or stupid. He was just impetuous: which Martin Brundle agreed with in the commentary not long after I tweeted words to that effect. But he’s been impetuous too many times – and his puncture later on from hitting Liuzzi while trying to overtake was probably another case – and he’s throwing away the championship.
• So three title contenders not scoring points. I can’t decide whether that’s a bad thing or not for the championship. It’s still close, and that’s the main thing.

The Ugly

• It wasn’t pleasant watching Nico Hulkenberg trying to keep his car on the track on slick tyres when the rain started bucketing down. It was a gamble, and a gamble that didn’t pay off.
• Mercedes GP was as grey as ever, though slightly less ugly when being overtaken by the colourful Force India.

We expect to see Red Bull Racing, McLaren and Ferrari at the pointy end of the Formula 1 practice time sheets, and so it has been today at Spa. But they never have it all to themselves, so who are the interlopers this weekend?

Sauber has been constantly improving all season, and this morning Kamui Kobayashi set the 8th fastest time, and his team mate Pedro de la Rosa did the same this afternoon.

The other men shoving their noses into the top 8 were Robert Kubica (3rd in P1, 4th in P2) and Adrian Sutil (5th in P1, 2nd in P2).

That’s by no means uncommon for Kubica, and his rookie Renault team mate Vitaly Petrov improved from 17th this morning to 11th this afternoon. It’ll be disappointing if Petrov doesn’t keep his drive for at least another year.

It’s different over at Force India. Giancarlo Fisichella nearly won the race last year, and though there have been changes to the car since then, it still seems to like a low downforce track. Then there’s Sutil, who’s been pretty consistent this season, but more importantly is a noted regenmeister – and the weather in Belgium has been more than a little damp. A good combination, then.

Which leaves us with Sutil’s team mate Vitantonio Liuzzi, who managed 15th and 16th fastest times in today’s sessions. So far this year he’s amassed 12 points; Sutil has 35. Liuzzi isn’t a rookie. And Force India have given Paul di Resta regular runs in practice sessions this year. It doesn’t look good, does it?

Back to this weekend, Alonso topped both practice sessions today. But I wouldn’t be surprised to see Sutil and Kubica on the podium if it’s an extreme wet race. Let’s hope so, eh?

Team Aon had a storming weekend at Silverstone, taking victory in all three races, despite more restrictions to the LPG turbo engine after the Ford Focus locked out the front row of the grid in qualifying.

But team orders were extensively employed, and to questionable effect. The BTCC standings before this weekend looked like this:

Tom Onslow-Cole – The OC, if you will – was the team’s highest place driver, and took pole position. Despite that, the team favoured Tom Chilton, and The OC moved over to let Chilton win both races one and two. Missing a gear was the excuse trotted out by The OC after the first race, but Chilton acknowledged team orders after race two.

Team orders are legal in the BTCC, though it is frustrating when teams try to hide it. But in this case, the team orders seem wrong as far as the championship is concerned. The only conclusion is that Chilton has something in his contract.

Regardless, after today’s final race, which The OC won with Chilton down in 6th, this is how the standings look:

But how different would it be – for both drivers – had The OC won all three races today, as he really should have? Swap the two Toms’ finishing positions in today’s races, and the points would look like this:

It wouldn’t change the position of either driver, but The OC would be more comfortable in 2nd, and within sniffing distance of Jason Plato at the top of the standings. Chilton’s 5th in the championship would be more vulnerable, but really, if you’re 44 points or 52 points off the lead of the championship, what difference does it make?

All Team Aon have done is make Plato’s life at the top a little easier, and similarly Matt Neal’s task of retaking 2nd overall. Getting behind The OC is the best chance they have of taking the title. If they miss out by a few points to one of those two seasoned campaigners, they’ll only have themselves to blame.

There are three series which I’m forced to follow through highlights shows: British Superbikes, WTCC and World Superbikes. Well, not quite forced to: I could get Eurosport and watch them live. But I don’t. The point is: there is definitely a skill in crafting a highlights package, and not all of these manage it.

British Superbikes, on ITV4, represents close to the ideal highlights show. For one thing, there’s a real, actual presenter on screen and on the grid – James Haydon. As I have previously remarked, he now does a very good job indeed.

The downside is that the commentary is not bespoke: it’s an edit of Eurosport’s live coverage. But you’d not want to replace the ever-entertaining Jack Burnicle and James Whitham, and the highlights are extensive enough to still convey the story of the race – the programme is an hour long for standard two-race meetings, with an extra 30 minutes for the triple-headers.

That’s where World Superbikes on Channel 4 falls down. The problem is that two races – plus qualifying – are stuffed into less than half an hour; and while Charlie Webster provides a voiceover, race commentary is an edit of the world feed by Jonathan Green and Steve Martin. In a busy race, you end up with lots of shouting about the overtaking moves, and little idea of who’s where and who’s going where. So, bizarrely, you get better highlights from races with less action, because there are fewer quick, jarring cuts from one overtake to the next.

World Touring Car Championship highlights on ITV4 also squeeze two races plus qualifying into half an hour. The difference is that the commentary is specific to the highlights show – it used to be Martin Haven, but earlier this year Ben Constanduros took over. And it works: because the commentary is continuous, even when there’s a lot of action, there’s still time to cover how the race is progressing as a whole. There’s a bonus of watching WTCC highlights too: it cuts out all the bloody safety cars.

So the conclusion is you either need lengthy highlights, or a bespoke commentary. Easy!

Nine teams have scored points in Formula 1 so far this year. The three that haven’t are, of course, 2010′s new teams: Lotus, Virgin Racing and HRT. So how do you rank them, if they’ve scored no points?

The way the constructors’ championship does it is by best result. As autosport.com explains, that puts Lotus top (13th), followed by HRT (14th twice) and Virgin (a single 14th).

So that, I suppose, is the correct answer. But is it the fairest reflection of performance over a season? Probably not.

One alternative is to pretend that the established teams don’t exist, and award regular championship points to just the new teams. Everything F1 has done that, and again you end up with Lotus on top, then HRT, and Virgin last.

I’m not sure that’s right either though: the rewards seem too great for just finishing the race.

Let’s have a look at the order the new team drivers have finished in so far this season, from the classified finishing positions, white background representing a non-finish.

It’s hard to argue that Lotus isn’t top of the new teams. So don’t try it, sunshine.

But it’s not so clear cut between Virgin and HRT. Clearly Virgin suffered most from unreliability for the first four races or so, but since then, they’ve generally finished ahead of HRT, when both teams have finished.

Let’s adopt a points system, and see if we can quantify that: one point for a classified finish, and one point for every driver you finish ahead of. Again, data from here.

That, to me, feels about right. Lotus come out comfortably on top, then it’s close between Virgin and HRT, but Virgin edge it.

I think it’s a fair reflection of the drivers too. Heikki Kovalainen is deservingly top of the new team drivers – under this and the other two classifications. Apart from in Britain, when he’s finished, he’s been the first one home. Which is about all you can ask for, really.

Jarno Trulli and Timo Glock come out equal second on points, followed very closely by Karun Chandhok. It’s Chandhok second under the other two classifications, chiefly because he’s only failed to finish two of his races. Clearly second best of the new team drivers is a tough call to make.

But what is clear, is that Bruno Senna suffered the brunt of HRT’s unreliability, retiring from six of the first eight races, only one of those after an accident. That’s left him ahead only of HRT ‘super sub’ – for want of a more accurate term – Sakon Yamamoto; and adrift of Lucas di Grassi, who’s been pretty respectable for Virgin.

While it’s fun, of sorts, to debate relative performance at the back of the grid, that all important 10th place in the constructors’ championship – and the money it brings – could well come down to a fluke result for one of the teams in a crash-packed race. Not terribly satisfying, but that’s life.

Who doesn’t love Michael Rutter? Be honest. He’s pretty ace, isn’t he? I don’t think I heard anyone else’s name being shouted by the crowd at Brands Hatch on Sunday, but middle-aged men were passionately and vocally willing on the unassuming 38 year old. I think that’s his appeal: he’s such an unlikely frontrunner, for British Superbikes or any other series really.

Rutter didn’t get carried away by the crowd’s encouragement though, instead doing what he always does: ride the bike fast, but not beyond what it’s capable of. So he didn’t pick up any wins, but he was on the podium for all three of the weekend’s races. That netted him the third highest points tally of the meeting, behind the visiting Tom Sykes and new championship leader Ryuichi Kiyonari.

Form has fluctuated over the course of the season for all the championship contenders, and that’s something I intend to return to.

But with only the second meeting at Cadwell Park to go before we enter the Showdown, Rutter is definitely one of the men on the up. If you take just the last three meetings, only Kiyonari has scored more points than Rutter. Compare that to the first three meetings of the season, after which Rutter was 6th overall, and Kiyonari 8th.

Another factor which occurred to me over the weekend was that the Showdown, which decides the championship, is played out over three meetings in September and October. You could argue that rain is more likely in the autumn than over the summer – might that play into the hands of someone like, ooh, Michael Rutter?

Rutter insists that he’s good in all conditions, and isn’t just a rain master. That’s true, but it’s also true that a lot of other riders struggle more in the rain than Rutter does.

It’s tempting to think that a rainy final round at Oulton Park – which doesn’t seem implausible in the north of England in October – could just sway the championship in favour of Rutter. How great would that be?

Well I had a jolly good time at Brands Hatch today, watching British Superbikes and all that goes with it.

Another man who I fancy will have enjoyed his day is Tom Sykes. He certainly looks happy after winning the first BSB race of the day, doesn’t he?

It only got better for him, winning race two as well. He’s not had even a podium in his day job in World Superbikes, this season or last, so to grab a couple of wins on his old home stomping ground must have been nice.

What about the regular BSB riders, though? Having only just got in, I’ve not seen any TV coverage, or read any rider comments. But at least some of them must be a bit frustrated that Sykes just rolled up, took crucial championship points and podium credits, and now toddles back of to World Superbikes.

Ho hum, such is life. At least there were three races this weekend, and Sykes only finished 5th in the first on Saturday.

It’s going to be a slow news month, with Formula 1 taking its month-long summer break, and MotoGP taking a few weeks off too. It doesn’t mean there’s no motorsport on TV though. Oh my no.

Fortunately, this weekend marks the end of the BTCC‘s own, even longer summer break, which means an entire afternoon of action from Snetterton on ITV4. Even more fortunately, the forecast is good: potential for a touch of rain on Saturday, then dry and warm – but not hot – on Sunday.

The weather could be important. Tom Onslow-Cole – who I confused at Thruxton on Wednesday – wants cool weather to be kind to the tyres on the Ford Focus. Conversely, the BMWs are kind to their tyres, so they’re after hot weather. Which they’re not likely to get.

You’d have to agree with championship leaders Matt Neal and Jason Plato, then: the two Toms in the LPG-turbo Focus should go bloody well. Especially on Snetterton’s long straights.

My eyes will be on – and at – Brands Hatch though, for British Superbikes. Same story with the weather: bit of rain possible on Saturday; warm and dry on Sunday.

It’s a curious point in the season: there are two more meetings until the points are reset, and the top six riders enter the showdown for the title, with only their podium credits carried forward. The top five – Tommy Hill, Josh Brookes, Ryuchi Kiyonari, Michael Laverty, Michael Rutter – are looking fairly safe.

But the pressure is on for the final place in the showdown. It’s John Laverty as things stands, but Alistair Seeley is just one point back. Stuart Easton has an outside chance too, but has had a shocker for the last four meetings.

With three races at Brands Hatch this weekend, it’s going to be absolutely crucial for that battle. Meanwhile the top five will be doing everything they can to pick up podiums, to give them a headstart in the showdown.

So there’s an interesting make-up to the meeting, and best of all it’s on the Grand Prix layout, which is always a treat. It’s been a long time since I’ve been round the back of the circuit. I can’t wait.