It’s a funny old time for A1GP. The series sort of horribly fell apart, just before the first race of what should have been the current season. Now more rounds have been cancelled, it would be surprising if any of this season takes place, and the website is down.

But A1GP boss Tony Teixeira seems to think that things are just dandy, and is one of the parties talking to new Formula 1 team Campos Meta about potentially stepping in as an investor. He told Reuters:

“It’s all for A1. My ambition is to bring A1 into F1.”

Which is what he’s been saying for at least a year or so. But as it stands, there is no A1 to bring into F1. Would it not perhaps be wise to fix that first? One thing at a time, surely.

The BBC’s Andrew Benson points out that Formula 1 teams are becoming increasingly nation-specific: from the obvious Force India and USF1 (though now with Argentinian backing), and the the Malaysian-owned Lotus team, to the less intentionally British McLaren and German Mercedes teams.

So we could have the curious situation of an A1GP team in the minority as a non-national team in Formula 1, when A1GP itself is all about national teams. If things keep going in the direction they seem to be, anyway. How galling would that be for Teixeira?

Rumours are that Adam Carroll – who won the last A1GP championship for Ireland – could be lined up in the second Campos Meta seat if Teixeira buys into the team. That would be excellent. Formula Two champion Andy Soucek is reportedly another option, and fittingly he would be a Spaniard in a Spanish team. That would also be excellent. So it’s A1GP vs Formula Two, and also A1GP up against its own principles of favouring nationality.

Confusing, isn’t it?

Meanwhile, Superleague Formula has been quietly getting on with it. I was hugely sceptical about the whole concept, but now it seems like Sebastien Bourdais has been proven right: it probably is the best option for drivers outside Formula 1 in Europe.

It could of course suffer a huge A1GP-style collapse, but from the outside things look pretty great: the season is extending to 12 rounds, and the prize fund is over €5 million. Perhaps most importantly, it’s had a title sponsor – Sonangol – since last season.

Which all just proves, once again, that I know absolutely nothing.

The Formula 1 circus has mainly arrived in Abu Dhabi for the final race of the season, and judging by the activity on Twitter, it’s pretty spectacular. I’m very jealous.

It’s going to be the end in a number of respects, but the one I’m interested in is refuelling, which is due to be banned next season.

Refuelling was behind a lot of the action at Brazilian Grand Prix a couple of weeks ago, starting with the fireball caused by Kimi Raikkonen’s exhaust igniting the fuel hose Heikki Kovalainen had torn from his fuel rig and driven off with. That would presumably be rather on the dangerous – and if not dangerous, then certainly spectacular – side if it happened in the unique Yas Marina pit lane exit tunnel, so this year will be the only time that will be a risk, however small.

More importantly, refuelling created a lot of the interest on track. Much of Jenson Button’s overtaking was to get ahead of those on longer fuel strategies, and later in the race there was the question of where Button would end up after everyone had taken their final pit stop. Part of that was Lewis Hamilton’s excellent drive on a long strategy from 17th on the grid to finish 3rd.

How much of that would have been missing from the race without variable fuel strategies? Quite a lot, I reckon. To my mind, there’s a serious risk that F1 could be more of a procession than ever next year.

The move to low fuel qualification contributes to that risk. I’m generally in favour of the fastest combination of car and driver being on pole position, and in past seasons I found it frustrating that fuel strategies were kept secret after qualifying. But this year, with the disclosure of qualifying weights, it’s just given us another variable to follow, speculate on and create interest. Next year, with the drivers largely in order of speed, the pack could just spread out over the course of the race.

Refuelling provides interest elsewhere too. After the Brazilian Grand Prix, I caught up with highlights of the IndyCar Series finale. Dario Franchitti secured the title by gambling on there being no yellow flag periods, saving fuel, and making one less stop than his championship rivals. It was tense – even though I knew the outcome – and made for a great story.

But F1 is dropping refuelling for good reasons, chiefly cost – of transporting the many fuel rigs to every venue, and so on.

However, it also comes as the FIA is moving towards making motorsport about getting the best performance from a limited amount of fuel, rather than a certain capacity of engine. Which is, undoubtedly, a good thing.

So I suppose it’s not the lack of refuelling that I’m worried about. It’s that refuelling contributes to the entertainment, and I’m not sure that there’s anything coming in to replace that contribution. And I guess we’ll only find out the magnitude of that contribution next season.

In the meantime, let’s hope the Abu Dhabu Grand Prix is as impressive as the facility seems to be.

Casey Stoner’s return to MotoGP from sort of illness only gets better, having qualified on pole for his home race in Australia. He should win, and my God it’s good to be back up to three riders who can beat Valentino Rossi once in a while. Rossi starts 2nd, Dani Pedrosa – who crashed in qualifying – 3rd, and Jorge Lorenzo 4th. Colin Edwards starts 5th, as always.

The most remarkable event from Phillip Island so far wasn’t in qualifying though, but in second practice on Friday. Marco Melandri hit a seagull full on, and pretty much destroyed the poor thing. You can see it here on the MotoGP Facebook page.

Then there was Formula 1 qualifying. Q1 went pretty much as planned, apart from a red flag caused by a Giancarlo Fisichello spin, and finished about 15 minutes late, albeit in rather wet conditions.

Q2 was delayed, but eventually got going about an hour after the start of qualifying. Not too bad. The weather wasn’t much better though, and it was quickly red flagged by Vitantonio Liuzzi crashing.

The restart came more than an hour later. The wait was a whole lot of fun though – for the BBC team especially, who moved from BBC One to Two during the mammoth delay, and had to put together a whole lot of padding. Note: it wasn’t actually fun.

Sebastian Vettel had already gone out in Q1, and Jenson Button followed him when Q2 eventually concluded, having been on the wrong tyres for the drying track. No dramas for Q3, just lots of trading of fastest laps, ending up with Rubens Barrichello on pole at home. He was quite happy about that. Fuel weights yet to be released, so we’ll see how things look when we know those.

But if that was an unconventional build up to a race, it’s been far worse for the A1GP season opener in Australia next weekend, which has mainly not prepared at all, and so has been cancelled. Series boss Tony Teixeira is characteristically defiant:

“A1GP may be down, but I do not accept we are out. We have had four exciting seasons that have proved we are a force in the sport and now we shall consolidate on what we have achieved to date. My efforts will be on finding a way forward with the support of some very loyal people.”

I do hope he succeeds. I like A1GP.

A1GP returns the weekend after next, as part of the Nikon SuperGP on Australia’s Gold Coast, which has the V8 Supercars Championship as its main event. It’s been a complicated summer for A1GP though.

The cars have been held by a freight company in a dispute over payment; the operating company went bust; there were rumours that Ferrari would withdraw its supply of engines.

The operating company’s holding company, however, was unaffected, and series boss Tony Teixeira announced a refinancing package late last month. So, in theory, all the debts should be settled, and everyone should be happy. We just have to hope that that’s the case.

The calendar for season five was released around the same time, and makes for slightly disappointing reading, in that there is no round in Great Britain for the first time. Germany is the only ‘traditional’ motorsport country included – the others being Australia, China, Malaysia, South Africa, Brazil, Mexico, Portugal and The Netherlands.

It’s tempting to suggest, therefore, that British circuits were perhaps unwilling to agree to less favourable financial terms, which might understandably be required by a series which has been fighting for its very survival.

Great Britain will be on the grid though, a provisional entry list for the Australian race having been published this week. What form Team GBR will take, however, is much less clear.

The previous franchise holder went into administration last year, but the team’s place on the grid was safeguarded by Teixeira himself. What’s happening this season? No-one knows.

It’s not the only question to be answered. The local paper highlights the lack of drivers, tyres, spares and so on.

I think it’s just a case of fingers crossed for now.

The weekend was quiet in terms of motorsport on terrestrial television, but it was all going on in foreign lands. And we’ll be able to catch up eventually.

First and foremost, one of Scotland’s least recognised exports – and that’s official, it says so on the BBC – Dario Franchitti took the IndyCar Series title for the second time.

It was shown on Sky Sports, but that’s no use to the likes of me, who will have to wait until 4.20am on Thursday morning, when Five will be showing highlights. Intriguingly, it was the first IRL race without a single full-course yellow. Does that make it a more interesting race, or less? You tell me. Especially if you watched it.

The other big thing was in V8 Supercars, which held the Bathurst 1000 endurance race. It’s an event of sufficient significance to even appear on the front page of the BBC News website at one point last week, albeit not for the racing.

Sticking with the theme of successful but unrecognised Brits in motorsport, Andy Priaulx – probably slightly better known to the general public than Franchitti – took part, and clearly enjoyed it. He finished 11th.

It’s Five in the middle of the night again for the highlights, but I reckon they won’t be on for about a fortnight yet. That seems to be the sort of delay we get with V8 Supercars.

Multiple Champ Car champion and Formula 1 reject Sebastien Bourdais is going to occupy himself with a bit of Superleague Formula from this weekend, racing for FC Sevilla. He’s obviously convinced by the series:

“For a driver, Superleague is the best alternative to F1. Today, it’s the only other championship in Europe to offer a driver the possibility of racing single seaters at a high, professional level.”

I think A1GP would have something to say about that. And GP2 for that matter, though to be fair that really is just a Formula 1 feeder series, and not a long term career option.

That seems to be how Giorgio Pantano saw it, anyway. Having taken the GP2 title on his fourth attempt last year, and with no way back into Formula 1 – where he raced for Jordan in 2004 – Pantano is currently representing A.C. Milan, and 4th in the standings.

Sebastian Bourdais has a lot of work to do, with Sevilla FC sitting 19th in the championship. It’s not obvious how he will do: he’s not an especially adaptable driver, but is very good when the car is as he wants it.

It’s intriguing looking at the Superleague Formula standings. There are quite a few reasonably well known drivers there, and indeed it’s Adrian Valles – who gets about a bit – in the table topping Liverpool FC car. But behind the wheel of the second place FC Basel car is the pretty anonymous Max Wissel. There are former GP2 drivers all the way down the standings, so previous form is no guarantee of success.

Whatever happens, Bourdais couldn’t resist a bit of a dig at his old team:

“I also want to have fun, which hasn’t often been the case for me during this last year.”

Well, maybe if you’d been better, you’d have had more fun.

The Le Mans 24 Hour is the big jobby this weekend. After extensive and impressive coverage of another legendary event this week – the Isle of Man TT – ITV4 has coverage of it. Sort of.

Qualifying highlights are on Saturday morning from 11.20am to 11.55am. The race gets under way on Saturday at 2pm UK time. ITV4 has race coverage only between 10.30am and 11.45am on Sunday morning.

After that Le Mans makes way for the British Touring Car Championship from Croft.

But it means that ITV4 won’t be showing the end of the race, either live or in highlights form. Unless it’s going to interrupt the BTCC programme, or highlights are going to be broadcast later than next weekend – which is when we have TV listings until. It’s all a bit odd.

In any case, Eurosport naturally has hours and hours of coverage.

And don’t forget that MotoGP is in Catalunya – for its second of three visits to Spain in 2009 – too.

Another busy weekend, then.

Judging by the highlights provided on the official website, the opening rounds of Formula Two from Valencia were rubbish. That’s because the videos are poor quality, very small, about a minute long, and lacking any sort of commentary. What bloody use is that? None at all.

The response on forums has been muted, not helped by Valencia’s unsuitability for anything on four wheels. I’ll manage to catch a race live on the website at some point I’m sure.

Meanwhile, we have the results to analyse. Actually the official website has a pretty good summary of the weekend by driver.

It’s not far off as I predicted some months ago, with two Red Bull Junior Team drivers out front. Former A1GP Canada driver Robert Wickens won both races, and behind him in the championship is Italian F3 champion Mirko Bortolotti.

Andy Soucek was my other pick, but he suffered a mechanical problem in race one, and sits 7th overall. But drivers can drop two results, so it’s not as bad as it could be for Soucek.

Milos Pavlovic was probably the unluckiest driver though. He had mechanical problems in the first race and qualifying for the second race, giving him little chance of getting anything out of the weekend.

18 year old Lithuanian Kazim Vasiliauskas is being touted by many as one to watch now. He qualified 9th for race one, yet finished on the podium. In race two he set the fastest lap, after going off the track while battling for 8th place.

The other drivers around the top of the championship at this stage are former GP2 racer Carlos Iaconelli, Red Bull Junior Team driver Mikhail Aleshin, and Austrian Philipp Eng.

There were points for two Brits in race one – Henry Surtees finishing 7th and Alex Brundle 8th – but that was all. Given that they’ve all moved up from Formula Palmer Audi, and the experience of some of the other drivers, that’s not surprising.

It’ll be interesting to see if the young Brits can catch up as the season progresses. And, with a bit of luck, the races might prove interesting in and of themselves too.

So all the teams have lodged entries with the FIA for the 2010 Formula 1 season, albeit most of them with what seem like significant conditions. But we’ll forget about it for now, and assume – correctly – that everything will work out.

So let’s move on to the weekend’s motorsport, of which there is much.

Formula Two begins at the WTCC meeting in Valencia.

A certain Robert Wickens has taken pole for the first Formula Two race, though I was led to believe that he’s concentrating on the Formula 3 Euro Series, so would be in Lausitz for that. But he’s not, so that’s just dandy, because I picked him out previously.

Meanwhile the WTCC will be hoping to move on from the inordinate number of meaningless technical infringements last time out, and of course the safety car crash.

MotoGP is at Mugello in Italy, so surely it’s going to be Valentino Rossi’s race. Jorge Lorenzo was fastest in first practice though.

The Superbike World Championship is in the USA, at the Miller Motorsport Park, whatever the hell that is. It’s in Utah, apparently.

It’s all go in Britain too: British Superbikes at Thruxton, and British Touring Car Championship at Oulton Park.

All that, and it’s going to be nice outside. What is a motorsport fan to do?

He’s presumably well known in American racing circles, but I’d not heard of Humpy Wheeler, until he was mentioned as the potential replacement in denied reports that Tony George has been ousted from Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

Howard Augustine Wheeler, Jr. is his full name, Wikipedia tells me, though he’s better known as H.A. or Humpy. Now retired, he was boss of Lowe’s Motor Speedway, and it seems like he was kind of a big deal, in NASCAR particularly.

But more importantly, he has a good name.