It’s a frankly ludicrous weekend for motorsport: there are rounds in no less than four world championships, but it’s the British Touring Car Championship at Thruxton which I’m most interested in – and only partly because I’m going to be there, trying to tweet from trackside.

At the pre-season media day, there were four drivers notable by their absense. Louise Goodman spoke to Tom Onslow-Cole on the grid at Brands Hatch: he couldn’t bring the sponsorship VX Racing would need, and the Volvo deal didn’t materialise in time, though it could for next season.

The other three will all be on the grid at Thruxton though. James Thompson has ousted Gordon Shedden from Team Dynamics; Jason Plato continues in a Chevrolet Lacetti run by RML, now under the team name Racing Silverline; and RML will be running another Chevrolet Lacetti for Mat Jackson.

The Chevrolet Lacetti is due to go well at Thruxton: it proved to have a mighty powerful engine at Brands Hatch, and outright speed is the key at Thruxton. It’ll be interesting to see how Mat Jackson does in a front-wheel drive car after spending previous years in the BTCC in a rear-wheel drive BMW. He won the SEAT Cupra Championship prior to that though, so he’s no stranger to success in a front-wheel drive car. I think it’ll mainly be Plato challenging the Vauxhall drivers; the BMWs might struggle.

At least the ever-changing weather forecast is looking clear now – which is good for me and good for the rear-wheel drive BMWs.

Further afield, Formula 1 is in Bahrain. The Friday practice sessions have been inconclusive as ever, with a completely different top three in P1 and P2. That said, Brawn GP, Toyota, Williams and Red Bull Racing are all going well yet again. Fernando Alonso in the Renault is looking like he might be a bit handy too. It’s definitely closer than it was, in any case. Though the Ferrari drivers are still embarrassingly nowhere.

Over in Japan we find MotoGP, and so far Valentino Rossi very slightly has the edge on Casey Stoner. The other riders are once again looking largely irrelevant. Another two horse race, then.

The World Rally Championship is already under way in Argentina, and happily Sebastien Loeb isn’t having it all his way. After stage 5, Mikki Hirvonen is narrowly ahead, with the top five separated by less than ten seconds. This could be rather good!

Finally, the Superbike World Championship is in Assen. The news is we have another Brit this week, with British Superbikes rider Stuart Easton in for Broc Parkes on the Kawasaki. In first practice Leon Haslam continued his reign as top Brit, in a session topped by man of the year Ben Spies.

And that’s the how the weekend is shaping up, in a rather wordy nutshell.