Today’s British Touring Car Championship media day has delivered absolutely everything it could have done to get me geed up for the coming season. It’s hard to know where to start.

How about the fact that the top four in today’s testing at Brands Hatch contained four different makes of car. That’s a pretty good start, isn’t it?

There are some superb car and driver combinations. Jason Plato in a works Chevrolet Cruze is going to be hard to beat, and indeed he topped today’s timings. Matt Neal in the other works entry, Team Honda, is a pretty enticing prospect too; though everyone’s favourite cartoon villain was outperformed today by his team-mate Gordon Shedden, who ended the day second.

I’m particularly pleased to see Mat Jackson back in a BMW – Airwaves BMW, to be specific, and the squad made a good start, though it was Steven Kane third on the time sheets. That beat BMW rivals WSR, for whom Rob Collard finished 5th.

After a storming end to 2009, Tom Chilton in Team Aon’s home-made Ford Focus is going to be excellent value, and Tom Onslow-Cole is a bloody good team-mate. Chilton was 4th fastest.

Also to watch will be Andrew Jordan, and to a lesser extent David Pinkney, who have got the futuristic NGTC engine in their independently run Vauxhall Vectras. And let’s not forget, direct from the WTCC, Tom Boardman in the championship’s sole SEAT Leon, and the pair of brand new Volkswagen Golfs. Not to mention the few remaining BTC-spec cars, chief amongst them Paul O’Neill in a Honda Integra.

That’s not enough? Well, probably the day’s best news was confirmation that, despite the withdrawal of VX Racing, the team behind it, Triple Eight, will be returning with a couple of Vectras. And just to keep a little bit of tension and intrigue in the run up to the start of the season, they have yet to name any drivers. That means we can speculate about the missing big names: reigning champion Colin Turkington – who is looking unlikely – and Fabrizio Giovanardi. Or some lovely surprise!

It’s all set to be a bit of a corker, isn’t it?