The Bugatti circuit at Le Mans is a bit rubbish, so we’re told. It didn’t stop the French Grand Prix from spoiling us with three tremendous races today though – and plenty of talking points around the races too.

Road Rash

It started this morning in MotoGP warm-up, when Randy de Puniet accidentally got right in the way of Casey Stoner. Stoner’s reaction was to pull alongside de Puniet and give him a bit of a punch. It brought back happy memories of Road Rash.

125cc

Nico Terol inevitably lead from the start of the 125cc race, but was followed closely by rookie Maverick Vinales. Was Terol biding his time? Could the rookie really keep up with the experienced championship leader? It was fantastically tense.

They toyed with each other brilliantly all race long, taking it in turns to lead, but neither could pull out any kind of advantage. The decisive move was left to the last lap, and it was Vinales who made it. That was the first of two jump off the sofa moments today.

It was an astonishing victory for the 16 year old in only his fourth race. But equally impressive was how gracious Terol was in defeat. But with an increased 36 point lead in the standings, he can afford to be.

Moto2

The Moto2 race wasn’t quite as tense, but it was a solidly entertaining bit of bike racing. It would have been enough for Marc Marquez to finally finish a Moto2 race, so to battle through from the arse end of the top ten on the first lap to take the win was nothing short of spectacular. Which, of course, it what we expect of him. Hopefully he’s got the hang of the bike now, and we’ll see more of that sort of thing.

MotoGP

Everyone had a reason to push in the MotoGP race today. Casey Stoner and Dani Pedrosa are fighting for supremacy within the Honda team; Marco Simoncelli wants to get in amongst the factory Honda boys; Jorge Lorenzo wants to challenge any of the Hondas (not counting Toni Elias, of course); and Valentino Rossi is looking to challenge anyone he has the opportunity to as he develops the Ducati.

Add to the mix the widespread complaints about Simoncelli’s rough and ready riding style; Pedrosa’s fast but fragile state; and the simmering rivalries between Stoner and Rossi, Rossi and Lorenzo, Lorenzo and Simoncelli. If that’s not the set up for a stunning race, I don’t know what is.

The race absolutely delivered. Everyone was pushing – for the aforementioned reasons – and it produced some great racing. Stoner eventually ran away with it, after Simoncelli and Pedrosa blew up – ending badly for both parties. That left Dovizioso, Rossi and Lorenzo to fight over the remaining podium positions – ending up in that order.

Plus there was a distracting little battle going on to not finish last, between Hector Barbera, Karel Abraham, Toni Elias and Alvaro Bautista, who all finished within half a second of each other. An embarrassment of racing riches, really.

That incident involving Simoncelli and Pedrosa, then – the other jump off the sofa moment today. No doubt it was a hefty move from Simoncelli, but did it deserve a ride through penalty more than any other move this season? Probably not. What’s not in question is that Pedrosa breaking his right collarbone is a blow for the championship.

Rock ‘n’ roll

But it would be a shame to end on a downer, after such a good day of racing. So our final thoughts go to Slash, who was a guest of someone or other at Le Mans today. The BBC’s Matt Roberts spoke to him on the grid, which soon turned out to have been a bad idea when Slash dropped a casual little F-bomb after being asked whether he was enjoying himself. Obviously he was.

Picture Credits
Road Rash: The Urban Gamer
Casey Stoner & Randy de Puniet: MotoGP.com

There was a point in Sunday’s MotoGP race at Estoril when Loris Capirossi was running inside the top ten. There wasn’t exactly much going on in the race, so I checked his recent results, and the last time he finished a race in the top ten was the US Grand Prix at Laguna Seca in July 2010.

There are times when I forget that he’s still racing, and his cheery face popping up on the TV coverage gives me a little surprise. It’s easy to forget, too, just how successful a career he’s had in Grand Prix motorcycle racing. Let’s have a graph.

He won the 125cc world championship at his first attempt, and retained the title the following year. Then it was straight to 250cc, and he eventually won that championship when he returned after a brief stint in 500cc. His best championship result in the top class is 3rd, which he has achieved twice, once in 500cc and once in MotoGP.

Along the way, he’s taken 29 race wins (9 in MotoGP/500cc) and 99 podiums (42 in MotoGP/500cc). Wouldn’t it be nice for him to grab one more podium, and hit three figures?

It doesn’t look likely, though. His last podium was in 2008, his last win in 2007. When he eventually retires, will he be remembered for his early success, or his later career on mediocre machinery? Hopefully the former.

I think it’s useful to keep people like Capirossi in mind when talking about high achievers in the lower classes. Marc Marquez, for example: after his 125cc season last year, he looks like an obvious future MotoGP champion. But it doesn’t always work out that way.

There’s a lot of talk in Formula 1 today about the likelihood or otherwise of News Corporation launching a bid for the sport. It’s healthy to be suspicious of News Corp – but don’t forget that Formula 1 has had its fair share of questionable dealings in the past.

Inevitably, all this has raised the prospect of Formula 1 coverage going to Sky Sports. Being a selfish Freeview watching sort, it’s the last thing I’d want. It’s also not terribly likely – I hope. Formula 1 with no presence on free-to-air TV would be a significantly less attractive prospect for pretty much everyone involved – fans, teams, sponsors, FIA.

MotoGP

MotoGP rights holders Dorna realised that a couple of years ago, and made a push for free-to-air coverage at the expense of subscription channels. That stripped Eurosport UK of its rights, which didn’t go down well at all – chiefly because of Toby Moody and Julian Ryder commentating on Eurosport, compared to Steve Parrish and Charlie Cox on the BBC.

A compromise was reached, with delayed coverage of the MotoGP race on Eurosport, but Dorna essentially stuck to their free-to-air guns.

WRC

World Rally Championship promoters North One Sport didn’t seem to share Dorna’s view when the WRC rights were awarded to subscription-only channel ESPN earlier this year, having been on free-to-air Dave previously. Google still shoves more traffic to this site on that subject than anything else, so it’s clearly not just an issue for me.

I genuinely believe that the WRC will suffer in the UK for not being on a free-to-air channel. Obviously I’m more than a casual motorsport fan, but I realised yesterday that I didn’t know who won last weekend’s Rally Jordan. Out of sight, out of mind.

North One Sport was acquired by CSI last month, and I’ve seen no mention of the ESPN deal being multi-year. So hopefully the new owners might give a little more priority to getting the WRC in front of a few more eyeballs in 2012. Fingers crossed.

WTCC

The World Touring Car Championship seems even less bothered about free-to-air. Given that the promoter is Eurosport, that’s perhaps not a surprise. Until this year, ITV4 had half-hour highlights from every round, but it looks like that hasn’t been renewed for 2011.

That’s a shame, obviously, but I’m not sure I’m that fussed. There’s a lot of uncertainly in touring cars at the moment – particularly around regulations – and the WTCC seems to have suffered the most. It could pick up again, but this year doesn’t look like it’ll be a classic. I think I can live without it.

We’ve had the Dakar, the Monte Carlo Rally, and a couple of rounds of the World Rally Championship. All good and well. But for me, the motorsport year really gets started this weekend, with the floodlit Qatar Grand Prix.

BBC

The good news is that the BBC is continuing its coverage of MotoGP. Races will mainly be on BBC Two; qualifying and support races will be online and on the BBC Red Button – but not always on the Red Button on Freeview, because there’s only one bloody stream.

For the Qatar Grand Prix this weekend, it looks like qualifying for all three classes, Saturday 1450-1810, won’t be on the Red Button on Freeview; Final Score will be taking up the one stream at that point, so you’ll need to go online. The 125cc and Moto2 races, Sunday 1550-1805, will be on the Red Button on Freeview though. The MotoGP race will then be on BBC Two, 1830-2000.

Another season, another presenter, and its Matt Roberts who’s been given the nod this year. I thought he should have been given the job last year, having proven himself more than capable when in for Suzi Perry. His job in pit lane has gone to Dorna reporter Azi Farni. Alas, Steve Parrish continues to be joined by the repetitive Charlie Cox in the commentary box.

There’s also a change on the world feed, which the BBC takes for Moto2 and 125cc. Gavin Emmett and Nick Harris remain in the commentary box, but Ian Wheeler has moved from pit lane reporting to Marc VDS Racing, the team running Scott Redding in Moto2. His place is taken by Joseph Caron Dawe.

MotoGP

Enough about the telly, what about the racing? If MotoGP winter testing has shown us anything, it’s that Honda have built a bloody rocket ship. Which two of the established aliens – Casey Stoner and Dani Pedrosa – are using to good effect.

In ten sessions spread over four tests, only the very first was not topped by a Honda – that went to Jorge Lorenzo. Stoner came out on top in six, Pedrosa in two, and Marco Simoncelli in one.

But it’s daft to make rash predictions based on testing. Yamaha apparently look good on longer runs, and despite Ducati’s troubles, you can never ignore that man Valentino Rossi.

The little chipmunk-faced Australian on the Honda looks a bit bloody good though, doesn’t he? As long as he stays away from the milk.

Moto2

In Moto2, it looks unsurprisingly close: the recent test in Jerez saw the top ten covered by not much more than a second.

Five riders were in the top ten in all three sessions: British rider Scott Redding, who found great form towards the end of last season; last year’s 125cc sensation Marc Marquez; former MotoGP rider Yuki Takahashi, in his second season of Moto2; and fellow Moto2 returnees Stefan Bradl and Thomas Luthi.

It’s hard to imagine the 2nd and 3rd place men in 2010, Julian Simon and Andrea Iannone, not featuring strongly this year too.

Both Espargaro brothers are moving to Moto2; Aleix, down from MotoGP, is looking more likely to be immediately competitive than Pol, up from 125cc. Britain’s Bradley Smith is also up from 125cc, and it’s not looking bad for him, but neither is he looking like one of the obvious frontrunners just yet.

But because it’s Moto2, form will probably go out of the window once all 39 riders try to go through the first corner together, and we’ll end up with delightfully unexpected results.

125cc

It’s the last year of the 125cc class before it’s replaced by Moto3, and Nicolas Terol will be looking to improve on his 3rd in 2009 and 2nd in 2010 by finally taking the title this season. He has to be the favourite, though the same could have been said a year ago, until that pesky Marquez came along and spoiled everything for him by being bloody brilliant.

Terol has been regularly topping the time sheets in testing, so it’s looking good for him. His team mate at Aspar is Hector Faubel, looking decent after moving back down after a season of little achievement in Moto2.

Of the other riders remaining in 125cc, Efren Vazquez, Sandro Cortese, Jonas Folger and Johan Zarco were there or thereabouts at the Jerez test.

There are plenty of rookies to keep an eye out for, but particularly Miguel Oliveira and Maverick Vinales, both noticeably quick amongst the more familiar names at Jerez. Vinales is riding for the new Paris Hilton team, so we should be seeing plenty of pink. Hooray!

Brits

Scott Redding and Bradley Smith in Moto2 are the best hopes for British success, but they’re by no means alone in the paddock. They’re joined in Moto2 by rookie Kev Coghlan; in 125cc we’ve got Danny Webb in his fifth season, and rookies Danny Kent, Taylor Mackenzie and Harry Stafford. Stafford is the only complete rookie, the others having had the odd wildcard entry.

Top of the bill, though, is Cal Crutchlow, making his MotoGP debut. It’s not going to be easy for him. Fingers crossed though, eh? A slightly unfortunate turn of phrase, given the state of his finger at the moment (click with care – it’s not pleasant).

I’m a little bit obsessed with the colour orange. Not in a mental way, you understand. But I do like to see an orange paint job on a car or bike. It’s colourful. The world doesn’t have to be all corporate, clinical, white and blue.

If you’re looking for a good orange livery, then the obvious place to start is Orange Arrows, active in Formula 1 between 2000 and 2002. Well, active in part of 2002, until the team ran out of money. It’s the obvious place to look, but not the best place: I think there are stronger combinations than orange and black.

Funnily enough, the team raced as Repsol Arrows in 1999, so orange was prominent even before Orange. But that colour scheme is better known in MotoGP, on the factory Repsol Honda bike – amongst others. Orange and red though? We can do better.

There’s somewhere else obvious to look for a bit of orange. Somewhere just over the North Sea.

It wasn’t a surprise that A1 Team Netherlands chose orange to represent their country in A1GP. But it was impressive just how pure the orange paintwork was.

The same can be said for the Hummer that Robby Gordon entered in this year’s Dakar. After losing Monster Energy sponsorship to BMW, he was left to run a livery based on his own Speed Energy brand. It was, to say the least, bright. Not bright enough to attract his team mate’s attention when Gordon was broken down on the side of the road in need of help – but that’s another matter.

BTCC

Still not the best use of orange in motorsport though. For that we have to come home, to the British Touring Car Championship. Specifically between 2006 and 2008, when the BTCC was blessed with orange cars from both Team RAC and Team Halfords. Of the two, Team RAC wins it for me: orange and white is a virtually unbeatable combination, isn’t it?

I’m optimistic for 2011, because the Dynojet Racing Toyota Avensis in which Frank Wrathall is contesting the BTCC is looking mentally orange. Perhaps not quite up to the standard of Team RAC, but pretty bold stuff going by the workshop shots from Toyota.

Now there’s a reason to be cheerful.

Photo Credits
Orange Arrows: Klaus Nahr, flickr – Some rights reserved
Repsol Honda: Honda
Robby Gordon Hummer: Hernán Valeriano, flickr – Some rights reserved
Dynojet Racing: Toyota UK, flickr – Some rights reserved

It’s not clever to read too much into pre-season testing. But it can be fun to jump to conclusions just for the hell of it, in the knowledge that it’s a bit meaningless. After all, it’s only motorsport.

That said, there’s not much fun to had with the times coming out of the first Formula 1 test of the year, at Valencia this week. Team Lotus aren’t running until tomorrow; McLaren, Force India and Virgin Racing are using last year’s car. It’s all a bit scrappy, but things will tidy up as the circus visits Jerez, Barcelona and Bahrain in the coming weeks.

MotoGP

Luckily, there’s fun to be had with MotoGP, which started testing at Sepang today.

Like the hope that Suzuki have found some pace, despite having scaled back to a one-bike entry for Alvaro Bautista. He finished the day 6th fastest. Who wouldn’t like to see the blue bikes back fighting at the front?

Skip back a year, though, and we see something similar: Loris Capirossi finished 4th on the first timed day of the Sepang test, on a Suzuki. And the 2010 bike didn’t exactly bring the team much success. Or indeed any success at all.

What about the top of the timesheets then? Three words: Casey Stoner, Honda. That combination has been much-fancied since it was confirmed last year, and it’s still much-fancied.

However, Jorge Lorenzo was the fastest man when he brought his day’s running to a close, about an hour before the end of the session. Stoner then went on to beat Lorenzo’s time, but the #1 fell no further down the order than 2nd – albeit 0.4 seconds off Stoner’s best.

The other men in the top five – Dani Pedrosa, Marco Simoncelli and Ben Spies – don’t look out of place.

But that does mean that Ducati had a bad day – or rather, they didn’t have a fast day, which is not necessarily the same thing. Valentino Rossi continues to struggle with his shoulder, so it’s no surprise that he was down in 12th. But it’s curious that Rossi was faster than Nicky Hayden, and that Randy de Puniet on the satellite Pramac machine was the fastest Ducati.

Curious, but not significant. Hayden came top in the 2008 official test, but that season he managed just two podiums and ended up third Honda in the standings. It just goes to show: it doesn’t count until the season begins.

So we’ve established that it’s pretty tricky to determine who, across all championships, was the best driver – or rider – of the year. Luckily, it’s much easier to determine the best championship of the year: just ask me, because I’ve given it a moment’s thought.

The world and his solicitor has been singing the praises of the 2010 Formula 1 season, declaring it the best in many years. And they’re not wrong. But it’s not my Champion of Championships: I reckon it was the 125cc GP MotoGP support class that brought me most sheer enjoyment this year.

It’s a slightly uneasy conclusion to reach, because it wasn’t a season of closely-fought races and last lap dramatics – which have often been the hallmarks of 125s. For pure action this year, it was all about Moto2. But for a fascinating season-long title fight, 125s did the trick – and made the F1 battle look positively predictable.

Going into the season, the obvious bet for the championship was – to my mind at least – Nico Terol: he finished 3rd in 2009, and for 2010 – his sixth season on a 125 – joined the team who won the title in 2009 with Julian Simon. Things started well for Terol, winning in Qatar. He was rarely off the podium for the rest of the season, the only hiccups being a 4th place in Britain, a last lap accident in Catalunya, and missing the following race in Germany as a result.

But really, the season was made by one man: Marc Marquez. In his two previous years in 125s, he’d managed a couple of podiums. He equalled that in the first three races of 2010 (with a crash and arm dislocation between them for good measure), but that was nothing compared to what was to come. He took his first win in the next race, then went on to become the first man since a certain Valentino Rossi to win five 125cc GPs in a row. So from nowhere – literally – he put himself on a level with Rossi. Unbelievable.

But still nothing compared to what was to come. The next few races were a bit tougher: Marquez dislocated his shoulder at Brno; and had a bit of a crash at Indianapolis, and later earned a penalty for cutting the track; won in San Marino; but was taken out in Aragon. Then came the next burst of uncanny consistency: four wins in a row, this time.

The last of those, at Estoril, was perhaps his most astonishing race of the season. Marquez was running strongly when the original race was red-flagged, only to crash on the sighting lap for the wet restart. He came into the pits for repairs against the advice of his team, who wanted to tend to his bike on the grid. The result was that Marquez was too late to take his 2nd place grid slot, and had to start the nine lap sprint from the back of the pack. That wasn’t too much of a problem though: he was 3rd by the end of the first lap, and ultimately the victor in a race-long battle with Terol and Smith – who was, by this point, trying to help Terol win the championship. Incredible.

Marquez claimed the world title at the final race of the year in Valencia, in almost as remarkable fashion: but this time it was his willingness to not win that was remarkable. He let riders pass him to avoid any risk of a non-finish, and took enough points to secure the title.

In short, over the course of the season, Marquez was blisteringly fast, brave, sensible, rash, mature – everything you could want and more. Best of all, no-one saw it coming. Like everyone else, I can’t wait to see what he gets up to in Moto2 next season. He could be something very special, and we witnessed the start of it this year. That’s why it was such a fantastic championship.

The other factor that helped was British interest – chiefly Bradley Smith. Despite being on the same bike as Terol, it never seemed to have the same power. It was interesting – if disappointing – to see Smith and the team struggle to solve the bike’s problems. They were never quite completely eliminated, but enough to take advantage of Marquez cruising in Valencia and take one final 125cc race win – the only non-Spaniard to do so all year.

Though it’s hard to argue that Mika Kallio set the world alight in his two seasons of MotoGP, it’s a great shame to hear the expected news that he won’t be on the Pramac Ducati for the final two rounds of this year. That’s due, in the main, to some of his fans who were sat near me at Valencia in 2007.

Kallio had just won the 250cc race, and those guys were happy. In fact, one of them was take-your-top-off happy. I can’t fail to be won over by that kind of enthusiasm.

Moto2 looks like his most likely option for next year, but what of any Finnish fans who are making their way to the Portugal or Valencia rounds this year? Well, after that 250cc race in 2007, those fans went off and changed into Valentino Rossi t-shirts. So I reckon they’ll have a good time regardless, in that brilliantly manic Finnish way.

It should be disappointing that the MotoGP championship has been decided with three races still to go. Indeed, it was always extremely likely that Jorge Lorenzo would take the title this weekend. But after a race as good as the Malaysian Grand Prix, it’s nigh on impossible to be negative.

A big chunk of the reason for that is Valentino Rossi. His recovery from a shoulder injury has been on and off, but it looked very much on this weekend: fastest in FP1, 3rd in FP2, and fastest in warm up on Sunday. But qualifying hadn’t gone as well, putting him down in P6.

The start of the race only made matters worse for Rossi, and he found himself in P9 after the first lap. But he made up places by the handful in one effortless overtaking move after another to put him in P3 by lap 4.

Andrea Dovizioso was on storming form, taking the lead from Lorenzo by lap 9. That left Rossi free to make a pretty clean move on Lorenzo, after which the champion-to-be dropped back to take a safe podium finish. And, more importantly, the world championship.

It didn’t take long for Rossi to make his move on Dovizioso, but Rossi wasn’t given an easy ride to the flag, Dovizioso sticking close behind Rossi, even briefly retaking the lead. And that wasn’t the only close fight for position – Nicky Hayden, Hiroshi Aoyama and Marco Simoncelli provided particular entertainment in squabbling over P6. It was like a proper MotoGP race!

Lorenzo’s championship celebrations were characteristically unusual: he stopped on track, was joined by men dressed as Mario and Luigi, and held up a sign saying ‘GAME OVER’. His showing off was quickly undermined when he got a bit of flag stuck in his chain. Slick.

In parc ferme, Rossi didn’t let Lorenzo take all the glory, posing for pictures next to a 46 board with the word ‘VICTORIES’ scrawled on it – because that’s the number of races he’s now won with Yamaha. But Rossi was sure to congratulate his team mate – if that’s an accurate description of their relationship – when he talked to the BBC’s Matt Roberts after the race. There was even a little embrace between the Yamaha riders. They’re not friends, but at least they can be civil.

It’s just about as busy as weekends get for motorsport on Freeview: Formula 1 has the Japanese Grand Prix, MotoGP has the Malaysian Grand Prix, and BTCC comes to a climax at Brands Hatch.

Watching all of it won’t be terrifically straightforward, because the Commonwealth Games mean that there is precious little space on that single BBC Red Button stream on Freeview – which seems to be my favourite topic – so some of it will only be available online. We need a timetable – what, when and where!

UPDATE SATURDAY
Formula 1 qualifying was rained off this morning, and has been rescheduled to Sunday morning, 02:00 UK time, which will be on BBC One. The BBC Motorsport Schedule has been updated now, so it’s clear that the MotoGP support races will be on the Red Button, but only on satellite and cable.

So it’s going to be tricky to watch or even record the 125cc and Moto2 races – you can only record the Red Button on Freeview, and they’re not on the Freeview Red Button. And you might well want to record them, since not only are they on early, but they clash with the Formula 1 race. Fortunately, the BBC is pretty good at putting both support races on the iPlayer – keep an eye out here later on Sunday.

This all seems desperately complicated – and it is – but I’m just grateful I’ve not got Eurosport: then I’d have to add in the British Superbikes finale from Oulton Park too. Cor blimey!