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.

It’s hard to argue that anyone had a worse weekend than Sylvain Guintoli, who suffered a broken leg after Josh Brookes ploughed into him on the warm up lap for race one of British Superbikes at Donington Park. Photos of that here.

He’s now down to fourth in the standings, but far worse than that, he’s expected to be out for longer than the initially estimated eight to ten weeks. It’s obviously a massive shame for Guintoli and the Worx Crescent Suzuki team, but also the series and its fans – because it’s a very competitive rider out of the title race.

A far more positive loser, if you like, was Sebastien Loeb, who for the first time in the six rounds of this year’s World Rally Championship so far, failed to win a rally. I’m never a fan of a driver being dominant for too long, so it’s nice to see Jari-Matti Latvala taking the victory. It’s a shame for the championship that Mikko Hirvonen didn’t take full advantage of Loeb’s moment of weakness, but Loeb’s so far in the lead that it probably doesn’t matter.

Arguably the weekend’s biggest winner was Petter Solberg, who finished Rally Italy as top Citroen in his old, but not as old as it was at the start of the season, Xsara WRC. It was close though: Loeb initially finished 3rd in the C4, but a two-minute time penalty for a seat belt rule infringement promoted Solberg to a second season podium, a shoved Loeb down to 4th.

It was all about British winners in Monaco on Sunday. Obviously Jenson Button won the Formula 1 race, but there was also Oliver Turvey in Formula Renault 3.5 or World Series by Renault depending on your nomenclature preference, and Richard Westbrook in the Porsche Supercup.

Nelson Piquet was a definite loser in Formula 1, but I almost – almost – feel sorry for him. He was shunted out of the race by Sebastien Buemi through no fault of his own. Given that Piquet really needs to start proving that he deserves his drive with Renault, it’s potentially very harsh that an opportunity to do so was taken from him.

But it happens to everyone, and all sympathy went out of the window when he started talking about Buemi as one of “these young drivers” who “need to calm down”. That’s Piquet, about whom Falvio Briatore said after the Chinese Grand Prix: “this was kind of a contest: the more you spin the more points you have”.

People in glass houses, Nelson.

The 2009 GP2 season kicks off this weekend at the Spanish Grand Prix, and the rubbish news is that Setanta has the UK TV rights – along with three other championships.

No GP2 on Freeview is a disappointment, and will put a dent in the recognition of the series. Eurosport would have been an acceptable home, and A1GP has survived on Sky Sports, but Setanta is surely borderline useless.

Plus, having lost some of its football rights, the finances and future of Setanta are now very much in question anyway. The broadcaster’s motorsport portfolio of GP2, Superleague Formula, DTM and the FIA GT Championship isn’t going to do much to reverse its fortunes.

So why does the BBC not have GP2? Well, the only official line I’ve seen came from the BBC’s Interactive TV Editor, Matt Millington:

“Unfortunately, we are unable to offer coverage of the support races.”

That suggests there isn’t room on the BBC Red Button to fit in GP2 and so on. Curious that there is, however, room on the BBC Red Button for 125cc and 250cc qualifying sessions and races during MotoGP weekends. Perhaps a British hope in GP2 might have helped.

Talking of MotoGP support races though, details of Moto2, which replaces 250cc from next year, are coming thick and fast. Well, Honda is supplying the bike for the one-make series. Given that the bike manufacturers are the top teams in 250cc at the moment, I’m not sure what the championship is going to look like.

As if GP2 and Moto2 aren’t confusing enough, we’ll have GP3 from next year too. It’ll run along side GP2 at Formula 1 races.

Meanwhile there’s Formula Two at WTCC meetings, but Robert Wickens is ducking out of most Formula Two races in favour of the Formula 3 Euro Series – which supports the DTM.

It’s all very confusing.

I’ve been banging on about Formula Two for months now. The car is designed by Williams; the series is run by MotorSport Vision; most races will be support events at WTCC meetings; Eurosport will be broadcasting it. It’s a thoroughly professional endeavour, and no mistake.

But it’s the drivers I’m most excited by. I wrote about them at great length a while back, and today they were all out on track together at Snetterton for the first timed test sessions.

Back in March, my early favourite for the title was Robert Wickens, best known for his performances for Team Canada in A1GP. He finished the day at the top of the timing sheets.

My other picks were: Mirko Bortolotti, Italian Formula 3 champion and man of interest to Ferrari, who finished second; and former GP2 racer Andy Soucek, who ended up fourth.

It’s not all been predictable though. The headline for me is the man who finished the day with the third fastest lap: a certain Alex Brundle. That makes him top of the six Brits, and best of the four drivers coming straight from Formula Palmer Audi. It’s incredible really, given how little experience he has compared to many of the drivers he’s up against.

I’m dubious about reading too much into the specifics of the test times, but what they say to me is that international racing experience isn’t going to be the be all and end all of success in Formula Two, and we will almost certainly get some surprises. Whether that surprise turns out to be Alex Brundle or not remains to be seen.

Plus, with just over a second covering the top 20 drivers, it’s clearly going to be very competitive – though unfortunately at the time of writing only the top ten is available. So, for example, we don’t know where the other Brits are.

It’s also encouraging that Andy Soucek thinks that the car will allow plenty of overtaking.

Yes, it’s looking like Formula Two should be a rather interesting little championship.

It’s been kind of a dull week in motorsport, which is impressive given that there was an extraordinary meeting of the FIA World Motor Sport Council.

The Formula 1 news has of course been well reported, and indeed I’ve briefly opined about it on Twitter. McLaren’s suspended ban for lying, the optional £40m budget cap – mainly stuff we already knew, just being confirmed. There were details of course, but nothing really to write home about.

It wasn’t all about Formula 1 though. Drivers in the Formula Two championship this year will be able to drop their two poorest results, to reduce the impact of any unreliability of the brand new car. Sensible, but not world shaking news.

There was intriguing news concerning the World Rally Championship though. Specifically concerning the 2010 calendar, which was due to be mutually exclusive to the 2009 calendar, to form a two-year rotation system.

Not so now though, as two of the new rounds – Indonesia and Russia – have failed an FIA inspection, and will therefore not form part of the 2010 championship.

Remember the grumblings over Wales Rally GB a couple of weeks ago? Backing from the Welsh Assembly Government was in question over the event not being part of the 2010 calendar. But the event organisers were under the impression that Wales Rally GB would yet be a WRC event in 2010.

This is clearly why. The FIA has stated that the gaps in the 2010 calendar will be filled by “proven existing events that have run this year”. The clever money, therefore, is on Wales Rally GB being one of those events.

Also, bizarrely, Rally Monte Carlo “may ask to rejoin the calendar in 2011 rather than 2010″. Not sure what that’s about. Maybe it’s happy with the Intercontinental Rally Challenge, which it was part of this year.

We’ve arguably had some clues to the importance of Britain in the motorsport world this week.

Most emphatic was A1GP boss Tony Teixeira. The Team GBR franchise went into administration earlier this year, and Teixeira has kept the team afloat since then. He told autosport.com in no uncertain terms:

“As long as we have A1GP, Team GBR will run.”

So clearly he thinks that – at least for A1GP – Britain is pretty bloody important.

We may find out the World Rally Championship‘s opinion on the matter in due course.

Under the rotation system adopted from this season, Wales Rally GB doesn’t appear on the provisional 2010 WRC calendar published some time ago. Well, the Welsh Assembly Government – which pumps a lot of money into the rally – has just noticed, and isn’t keen on supporting the 2010 event.

You can understand why: Wales Rally GB would get considerably less exposure if it ran as a non-WRC event – even if it was on the IRC calendar, for example. It would therefore represent worse value for money, so the Welsh Assembly Government is probably right to rethink its investment.

However! International Motor Sports (organiser of Wales Rally GB) is under the impression from International Sportsworld Communicators (global promotor of the WRC) that the event could yet be on the 2010 WRC calendar, which will be finalised by the FIA’s World Motor Sport Council later this year.

The ridiculous thing is that all this is even threatening the 2009 running of Wales Rally GB – which is very much on the WRC calendar.

So ultimately it could be down to the FIA to decide whether Britain is special enough to be on the WRC calendar every year, knowing that the alternative might be no Rally GB every other year when it’s due to be part of the WRC calendar.

We do at least know from Formula 1 that the FIA has a soft spot for Britain, having stated that it could step in to safeguard the future of the British Grand Prix should there be problems with Donington Park’s preparations for 2010.

Indeed the FIA is due to inspect plans right about now. Circuit boss Simon Gillett is confident as always that all is super, smashing and indeed great.

Maybe it is for Formula 1 in 2010, but the British F3 meeting at Donington Park later this month has been postponed, and other events cancelled. This is all down to the work going on to upgrade the facility to Formula 1 standards, which has severely reduced run-off areas, leading to problems obtaining the licenses needed to hold races.

Still, we can always rely on the patriotism of Bernie Ecclestone. Should Donington Park not be ready, he is characteristically unwilling to even consider the possibility of the race staying at Silverstone. Or at least, that’s what he’s saying now.

The 24 car Formula Two grid is full now, but the question is, who the hell’s on it? Or, since this is as much an analysis of what they are as who they are: what the hell’s on it?

There are six drivers with some degree of GP2 experience – some just a few races though. The most notable of them by far is Spain’s Andy Soucek, because he’s the only driver on the grid with any podium success in either the GP2 Series or GP2 Asia Series – and he’s had podiums in both. Having also competed in Superleague Formula last year and been a test driver for the Toyota Formula 1 team, he’s the most experienced driver on the grid, and therefore one of the favourites.

He’s not my favourite for the title though: that meaningless accolade goes to Canadian Robert Wickens. He took five podiums – including one win – from 14 starts in the 2008-9 A1GP season, for a team which scored no points when he wasn’t in the car. He also won a race in 2008 in each of World Series by Renault and Formula 3 Euro Series. Plus he’s a Red Bull Junior Team driver, and they know their onions.

So let’s summarise driver experience levels:

• 8 drivers – what I’ll call ‘international’ experience, meaning GP2, A1GP or World Series by Renault
• 5 drivers – Formula 3 of one form or another
• 7 drivers – either Formula Renault or Formula BMW somewhere in the world
• 4 drivers – moving straight up from Formula Palmer Audi

It’s a varied field, then. But also – crucially – a field of equals, since all cars are run by MotorSport Vision. So we could well get a relatively unknown name surprising us. To that end, I’m going to pick out Italian Mirko Bortolotti. In 2008 he won the Italian Formula 3 championship, and was a test driver for the Ferrari Formula 1 team. He’s in the Red Bull Junior Team too. What more do you want?

To tie up a couple of loose ends: there are 3 Red Bull Junior Team entrants; and 3 drivers who’ve held positions as Formula 1 test drivers. Both encouraging signs for the standard of driving we’ll see.

How old are these 23 men and one woman? Six will be as young as 18 when the first race starts at the end of May; one will be as old as 26; the average age will be 20 at the start of the season.

And where do these folk come from? It’s heavily European, unsurprisingly. Britain is comfortably best represented, with 6 drivers taking up a quarter of the grid. Next is Italy, with 3 drivers; then 2 from Spain and 2 from Germany. Finally 1 from each of Austria, Brazil, Canada, Finland, France, India, Lithuania, Russia, Serbia, Sweden and Switzerland.

There’s overlap in some of these extremes. For example: all four drivers who are moving up from Formula Palmer Audi are British; and four of the six 18 year olds are British.

Formula Two is an uncommon championship in that it’s at quite a high level, but completely down to driver skill (and luck). For that reason, those with some pedigree – like Soucek and Wickens – have a lot to lose, should they be outclassed by – say – an 18 year old Brit coming from Formula Palmer Audi.

I only hope it turns out to be as fascinating on track as it is on paper.

It’s still just under three months until the first race, but already the Formula Two grid is full, and the championship has been relaunched.

There’s a new website, and the Williams-designed car has been unveiled at Brands Hatch.

The best news is hidden here, announcing that the races will be broadcast freely online. This is excellent news for those – like me – without Eurosport, and only sensible if they want to maximise their audience.

Jonathan Palmer, boss of series promoter MotorSport Vision, has naturally been declaring it all a massive success before it’s even started. Which, to be fair, it probably is.

It’s the level playing field – because all cars are run by MotorSport Vision rather than by individual teams – and low cost of competing that have been grabbing headlines. Palmer:

“I had to fight to make my own way to F1 without a lot of parental funding, or funding from anywhere… It has long been an aim of mine to create a path that gives drivers an opportunity to make their way at a good value.”

Which is why his son, Jolyon Palmer, is taking part in the first season. As is Alex Brundle, son of Martin. And Henry Surtees, son of John. Nope, no parental help there.

I shouldn’t be cynical though: those drivers deserve their places. And I’m genuinely excited about Formula Two: established international names like ex-GP2 driver Andy Soucek racing against relative upstarts like Alex Brundle is going to be absolutely fascinating.

At the weekend, at the South African round of A1GP at Kyalami, series boss Tony Teixeira – a South African himself – was bullish when speaking to South African newspaper The Times. And doubtless the paper chose to pass on his more bullish comments.

“Everything we are is what Formula 1 is trying to be.”

The paper also quotes him as saying that Formula 1 is “like professional wrestling, lacking in credibility”. It’s been widely reported that he some advice for Bernie Ecclestone: “Instead of copying all the ideas from A1GP — just buy me out!”

The amusing point is that Teixeira is very keen on getting into Formula 1. Indeed, speaking to autosport.com this week about his plans to build a motorsport base in Portugal near the Portimao circuit, he said: “it means nothing without F1″.

He looked at buying the teams that have been potentially for sale in recent times, but now looks like setting up his own team. Why?

“The only reason we want an F1 team is for the winners of A1 to go to F1.”

I’m not sure about that logic. It’s implicitly admitting that A1GP is beneath Formula 1. That might be objectively true, but I was under the impression that A1GP was to be seen as a viable alternative to Formula 1.

On the one hand, an A1GP team in Formula 1 might be good advertising for the series itself. But drivers might be less keen to commit to A1GP as a career option if it’s seen by even the series boss as a stepping stone to Formula 1. After all, there’s always the IndyCar Series, which certainly doesn’t see itself like that.