So, team orders are back in the news. And with the FIA World Motor Sport Council due to look at Ferrari’s actions at the German Grand Prix, they’re set to stay in the news. Oh joy.

How does Formula 1 keep getting into this mess? The standard argument is that it’s a team sport, so team orders are unavoidable. I agree. The problem comes, I believe, when team orders are issued in the heat of competition.

Felipe Massa being told, while leading the race, that he had to give the place to Fernando Alonso, was never going to go down well. Had Massa known, before the race, that he’d never be allowed to lead his team mate – assuming he didn’t, of course – then perhaps the place could have been swapped a little more seamlessly.

But that would have meant telling Massa, in only the middle of the season, that his role is now to support Alonso, not go for the championship himself. Which is a tough conversation to justify. It’s easier to get Massa’s engineer to tell him to move over in the middle of a race, as and when required. Quite cowardly on the part of Ferrari management though, isn’t it?

Take MotoGP: with no radio communications during the race, any team move has to be orchestrated between the riders alone, knowing what the team expects of them, and they can generally do it in a more acceptable manner. And only later in the season, when that conversation is more justifiable. Unless it’s Yamaha, who wouldn’t even try to have that conversation with Valentino Rossi and Jorge Lorenzo.

It’s a similar story in the World Rally Championship: there was uproar when Sebastien Ogier was used in the heat of the moment to benefit Sebastien Loeb at Rally Jordan. But Ford and Citroen both have established number two drivers, and that’s not really a problem.

The rule of thumb should be: if you can’t rationally discuss team orders in advance, and come to an agreement with all concerned, then they’re probably not justifiable. If you go ahead anyway, half-arsed in the heat of the moment, then you’re going to piss off the fans.

Not sure exactly how the FIA can phrase that in the rule book, though.

I sometimes wonder what sponsors get out of motorsport. In the BTCC, for example, there are a lot of ‘trade’ sponsors – like Pirtek, a “fluid transfer solutions” company. But it’s by no means always about selling to Johnny Armchair watching at home: there are considerations for business-to-business opportunities, hospitality and that sort of jazz. Apparently.

As a broker on the foreign exchange markets, you wouldn’t assume that FxPro would directly market to the regular motorsport fan. But they seem to be – and that intrigues me.

Their branding is all over the World Rally Championship, and admittedly the concept of Miss FxPro 2010 isn’t exactly crediting the public with a great deal of intelligence.

But their Formula 1 activities are a little more interesting. Most obviously, they sponsor Virgin Racing. To complement that, they launched the FxPro Currency Race, with F1-related prizes up for grabs. It’s quite clever: you choose the pair of currencies to trade, and your little F1 car’s performance is based on how that trade performs in real time.

It’s a touch bizarre as a game. It’s effective though: not only does it promote the brand, but it teaches the punter what foreign exchange trading is all about – presumably in the hope that they’ll indulge in a little of it with FxPro. And that is crediting the public with a bit of intelligence – which is to be encouraged.

It’s not just Formula 1 at Silverstone going on this weekend – Rally Bulgaria gets under way tomorrow morning, and Petter Solberg has topped the times in shakedown.

The interesting WRC chatter, though, surrounds the future of one Sebastien Ogier who, as previously established, may be the championship’s saviour, and is being parachuted in to the main factory Citroen team this weekend.

In short: Ford have approached Ogier regarding 2011, so he has a choice between the two manufacturers.

I particularly enjoyed the words of Citroen boss Olivier Quesnel, quoted by autosport.com. He seems broadly confident of keeping hold of the young Frenchman, but can’t do anything about Ford talking to him:

“This is the game, but Citroen is used to preparing the young driver and I think Ford should do the same – they have the young driver called Matthew Wilson – it would be better for rallying if they do the same.”

Ha ha! I’d love to know how intentionally sarcastic Quesnel was being in saying that. Honestly, comparing Matthew Wilson to Ogier. You cad!

To be fair, I’m sure Ford are doing their best to prepare Wilson. But you can only do so much with the raw materials you’ve got, and, well, it’s hard to imagine Quesnel trying to lure Wilson away from his dad’s team.

Citroen are finally dropping Dani Sordo. Well, not quite – which part of me finds disappointing. He’s being relegated to the Citroen Junior Team for three of the remaining seven rounds of the WRC season.

As an alleged tarmac specialist, Sordo will keep his top team place for the asphalt events. His gravel replacement will, inevitably, be Sebastien Ogier, who took his first rally win recently on the gravel Rally Portugal.

Said Citroen boss Olivier Quesnel:

“I do not want people to think that this reflects in any way badly on Dani Sordo and Marc Marti.”

But it does reflect badly on Sordo, doesn’t it? Because basically you’re saying that Ogier is a better bet than Sordo on gravel. Which is objectively correct.

Mind you, what reflects worse on Sordo is the fact that in four and a half years of driving the same car as Sebastien Loeb, he’s not won a single rally.

More Quesnel:

“They have had a slightly troubled start to the season and they need to get their confidence back. Driving in the Citroen Junior Team will give them the chance to compete without pressure and rediscover their form.”

Maybe, or it might just prepare them for disappointment if Citroen doesn’t run three cars in the factory team next year.

There’s a comparison here to the factory Ford team. Jari-Matti Latvala struggled last season, so to take the pressure off, this year he’s officially the number two driver, charged only with supporting Mikko Hirvonen.

It’s not quite gone to plan for Ford though. It’s done Latvala no harm, but Hirvonen has been pushing too hard, and making mistakes as a result.

So the question is whether Ogier can live up to Citroen’s expectations in his outings for the factory team. If he can, a seat alongside Loeb in 2011 could be his reward.

Thank the lord for Sebastien Ogier, saviour of the World Rally Championship. That’s a bit strong, perhaps, but after winning Rally Portugal last weekend, he’s what the series has been waiting for: a new, young driver who can both perform consistently, and beat Sebastien Loeb on merit.

Jari-Matti Latvala has beaten Loeb, and Dani Sordo is pretty consistent. But the last driver to develop both qualities was Mikko Hirvonen. That seems like a long time ago. And, incidentally, Hirvonen seems to have gone to tits this season.

To my shame, I left Ogier out of my 10 word WRC. But I did pose the question of whether he might outclass Latvala and Sordo this season; though I didn’t even consider Hirvonen to be under threat.

But Sordo is the interesting one in this situation. He’s proved capable of supporting Loeb’s championship campaigns – which is presumably why Citroen have repeatedly retained his services – but after four and a half seasons in the top Citroen team, he is still yet to win a rally. That’s rubbish. Sordo’s hopes for the future seem to rest on Citroen running three cars next year.

Ogier’s rise hasn’t been the WRC’s only storyline so far this year. There have been those high-profile new boys.

It’s not surprising that Kimi Raikkonen is bottom of the regular entries in the standings. At least he’s finishing rallies and scoring some points, though.

American Ken Block has had a tougher time. He’s got nothing to show for his three rallies this year, apart from a repeatedly battered Ford Focus. What is interesting, however, is the reason: pace notes.

I expected Block to outperform Raikkonen, on the basis that Block has been competitive in Rally America for some years. It’s not at the level of the WRC, but surely it’s more similar than, well, Formula 1.

What I didn’t know is that Rally America uses the Jemba Inertia Notes System, which produces automated pace notes. So Block is not used to producing his own notes on the recce. That’s why he thinks he’s struggling: his notes aren’t good enough, so he crashes.

But what I’m most thankful for, is that the last couple of rallies have had good fights for the lead. The start of the season was somewhat lacking in excitement, and though the coverage on Dave has been pretty bloody good even when given precious little action to work with, what we really want are good close rallies, and a good close championship. Here’s hoping.

I thought that jostling over starting order might play a part in Rally Jordan, and it certainly did.

At the end of day one there was the usual slowing down by the front runners to try to avoid being first on the road on day two. Annoying and utterly counter-productive, but nothing unusual.

It was before day three’s stages that things took a turn for the faintly embarrassing. There’s a good account of it on autosport.com, but in short: Citroen wanted to help rally leader Sebastien Loeb, and to that end sacrificed Sebastien Ogier, who was very much fighting for a podium finish; Ford countered, using an out of contention Mikko Hirvonen to advantage Jari Matti-Latvala. This wasn’t by means of the familiar slowing down, but possibly-intentional time penalties, and checking into stages early to run ahead of their allotted slot. All just to sweep dust from the stages for their manufacturer’s chosen one.

It sounds ridiculous, and it clearly was. The TV coverage on Dave did well to sort of gloss over it a bit and move on, presumably so as not to make the sport look like the massive moron it was being.

Happily, there’s quite a bit of unrest about the situation. There’s not enough noise coming from either the sport’s promoter, North One Sport, or the FIA, but there is a whiff of change in the air nonetheless.

Let’s consider the options. Remember that we don’t want the leader to be disadvantaged to the point that leading is undesirable; but neither do we want the leader to be at a particular advantage, otherwise it’ll all be over after day one.

The leader – or in the case of day one, the fastest driver in shakedown – could choose their own road position. This gives the leader an unreasonable advantage.

The starting order could be randomised. This would work to an extent, but someone’s still going to be disadvantaged, so starting order will become a very familiar, very boring excuse.

I reckon there’s a far easier way to level the playing field for the WRC competitors: don’t send the WRC competitors out first. That way the Junior, Super 2000 or Production WRC cars – or anyone else taking part in the rally, for that matter – clear the road for the big names.

I’m sure there are arguments that the other cars go out after the WRC guys because they’re slower and more accident prone, but something’s got to give. Because it’s inexcusably stupid the way it is.

It really is all about the weather in the motorsport world this weekend.

Formula 1 is in Malaysia, and word from the paddock in Sepang is that it’s been raining around 4-5pm every day. Both qualifying and the race start at 4pm local time (9am in the UK), so everyone is predicting rain to affect proceedings. Twitter is the place for photos of the rain, from the likes of Claire Williams and Jake Humphrey – though his photo of the looming storm just before it erupted is more dramatic. The question, then, is whether rain will spice up the race, like last weekend’s Australian Grand Prix; or bring it to a premature end, like last year’s Malaysian Grand Prix. Fingers crossed for another fun-packed race.

It’s significantly drier for Rally Jordan. For my money, it’s been a good start to the WRC season. It was all too common last year that drivers would avoid being first on the road on day two, by slowing down at the end of day one to ensure they don’t lead the rally. That didn’t happen in Mexico, which was brilliant: they just properly gave it some, chief amongst them the excellent Petter Solberg. He’s not going to do the same in Jordan, which is a massive shame. It’s a rubbish rule that needs to change.

Back in the UK, the BTCC is happily living up to British stereotypes, going on about the weather on its website. It is a bit of luck though: Sunday’s looking like the best day of the weekend at Thruxton, the venue for the first meeting of the season. Jason Plato is the clear championship favourite, but I’m rather excited about it all.

There’s more of a chance of rain for the first rounds of British Superbikes at Brands Hatch on Monday, but it can’t be worse than the snow that cancelled the same meeting in 2008. I don’t think there’s anything resembling a favourite yet, but if we use World Superbikes as a guide, then the Suzuki could be worth watching. There’s a fascinating range of riders though, with successful riders returning to the series, last season’s runners up, and new guys moving up the ranks. Including the new Evo class, there are eight makes of bike in the championship. It all bodes pretty well.

It’s just as well MotoGP doesn’t get under way for another week, otherwise it really would be a ridiculously busy motorsport weekend. And I’d have to come up with a connection to the weather for that too.

It’s the second round of the World Rally Championship this weekend, and the debut of that man Ken Block. So, inspired by the excellent Ten Word Wiki, there’s no better time to have a closer look at the sport’s top characters.

Sebastien Loeb
Remarkably, nearly didn’t win 2009 championship. Not nearly enough though.

Mikko Hirvonen
Loeb’s competition. Has to win it sometime, surely. Hates Loeb?

Kimi Raikkonen
The same as the Formula 1 one? Yes. I see.

Ken Block
An American! Fond of stunts, YouTube and energy drinks. Extreme.

Petter Solberg
Last non-Loeb champion. Has his own team now. Likeable.

Henning Solberg
Petter’s older, crazier, crashier brother. Orange car. God bless Norway.

Dani Sordo
Tarmac specialist. Can nearly driver on gravel too. About time.

Jari-Matti Latvala
Impressively unreliable, but has won a rally. Always good value.

Matthew Wilson
Advantaged by being Ford boss’s son. Disadvantaged by own ability.

The 2010 World Rally Championship, then. What should we be most excited about?

Well, not the change to the points system. The FIA proposed that the new Formula 1 points system, introduced to reflect the increased number of cars on the grid this year, be copied across to the WRC. Why? No idea, but it was approved by “a fax vote of competitors”. That could genuinely have been as little as two people, one representing Citroen and Citroen Junior Team, and other representing Ford and Stobart Ford. Maybe Petter Solberg too.

There are barely ten regular WRC competitors, so points down to tenth place seems like madness. In fact, there are 14 ‘main’ WRC entries – priority 1 and 2, whatever that means – to Rally Sweden, and that includes two very unlikely to bother the top ten. Indeed, at the time of writing the Super 2000 Skoda of P-G Andersson is in the top ten. Is that really the intention of the change to the points system?

Anyway, there is lots to look forward to. Marcus Gronholm back for Rally Sweden, American Ken Block doing a selection of rallies, the success or not of Kimi Raikkonen‘s change of career, the battle between Sebastien Loeb and Mikko Hirvonen, Petter Solberg with a decent car all year, Dani Sordo and Jari-Matti Latvala trying to string together a decent season finally, and whether Sebastien Ogier will outclass the pair of them. And you can’t argue with a bit of Henning Solberg.

Pre-season preparation is convenient: rather than confusing tests, it’s non-WRC events. So we’ve seen Hirvonen win the Monte Carlo Rally in the new Ford Fiesta S2000; Sordo win the Arctic Lapland Rally, and Raikkonen crash out of the same event.

But what I’m most looking forward to is seeing what the coverage on Dave is like this year. I wasn’t optimistic, on the basis that Motors TV now has extended coverage, but the show’s presenter Neil Cole helpful put me right. So with less celebrities, I’m looking forward to the Rally Sweden coverage on Sunday evening. Fingers crossed, eh?

Is it just me, or has there been a flood of optimism in rallying over the winter? No, it’s not just me, and yes there has.

The new season kicks off this week with the mighty Monte Carlo Rally. It’s the first round of this year’s IRC (Intercontinental Rally Challenge), which is perhaps the only disappointment – because it’s run by Eurosport Events series, thus broadcast only on Eurosport. They’re broadcasting the hell out of it though, so you can’t knock them.

And there are plenty of stories to compensate for that. One of the headlines is that Formula 1 regular Robert Kubica will be competing, in a Renault Clio R3. He’s done two rallies recently, the first of which he crashed in. It’ll certainly be interesting to see how he gets on.

Another one to keep a close eye on will be a certain Mikko Hirvonen, who will be driving the new Ford Fiesta. That follows M-Sport – which run Ford’s WRC team, and developed the Fiesta – signing up as a manufacturer for the IRC.

Obviously Hirvonen will be back to his Ford Focus after this weekend’s outing, but it’s representative of the health of rallying that the IRC now has eight manufacturers on board to varying degrees.

Then there are the regular IRC drivers, including Brits Guy Wilks and Kris Meeke, the current IRC champion, and other familiar names such as Toni Gardemeister.

All in all, there’s a lot to watch. So it’s a shame that it won’t get much mainstream attention, being (a) a rally and (b) not even part of the WRC. Just ask Maurice Hamilton.

There’s loads to look forward to in the WRC too, which gets going in Sweden next month. But let’s leave that until closer to the time.