Mental, mainly.

Formula 1 qualifying at Suzuka had crashes aplenty, stopping the sessions numerous times. The Brawn GP guys were lucky to get through Q2, leaving it down to a single run at the end. It was truly heart-stopping stuff, made worse by Sebastien Buemi having a big old crash just in front of them, bringing out the yellow flags.

Everyone got through the debris, but for not slowing down under yellow flags, Jenson Button, Rubens Barrichello, Fernando Alonso and Adrian Sutil all have five-place grid penalties. Buemi has one too, for pointlessly dragging his damaged car back to the pits; so do Vitantonio Liuzzi and Heikki Kovalainen, for gearbox changes. Mark Webber will have to start from the pitlane, having changed chassis; the same goes for Timo Glock if the injuries from his crash aren’t too severe. If Glock can’t race, Toyota will try to get dispensation for Kamui Kobayashi to take his place.

The FIA have officially deemed it far too complicated, so they’re going to mull it over and release a definitive grid in the morning before the race. There is a provisional grid though, and the first three rows shouldn’t change, so it will be Sebastian Vettel starting from pole alongside Jarno Trulli, with Lewis Hamilton and Nick Heidfeld on the second row, Kimi Raikkonen and Nico Rosberg on the third.

Vettel is competitively fuelled, so I reckon he’s on for the win. But if the race is anything like qualifying, we could be in for an eventful race. It had better be, anyway, because I don’t want to get up at 6am for nothing.

At Silverstone, Tom Chilton‘s Ford Focus took pole in the British Touring Car Championship. The Ford Focus has been a bit of a dog of a car for most of its debut season, so it’s a good job for Team Aon – and a good sign for next year. Title contenders Jason Plato and Fabrizio Giovanardi are 2nd and 3rd, but championship leader Colin Turkington is making life hard for himself down in 10th. Turkington will have to rely on his BMW’s rear-wheel advantage at the start, but with another two BMWs ahead of him – and they’re not his team-mates – it’s not looking like an easy task. It certainly bodes well for the races though.

As for MotoGP, the headline is that Casey Stoner is emphatically back. After three races off, he put his Ducati third on the grid – and it really is his Ducati, because it’s been proven time and time again that no-one else can ride the thing. It remains to be seen whether he can last a race distance though. Jorge Lorenzo starts from pole, with Valentino Rossi 2nd, and Dani Pedrosa 4th. Colin Edwards is yet again best of the rest. James Toseland? Bloody 12th.