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.

The Dakar continues, and the good news from South America is that Luca Manca is continuing to improve in hospital following his very nasty bike accident last week.

At the front of the bike race after stage 11, it’s still Cyril Despres by a country mile, with Francisco Lopez Contardo and Pal Anders Ullevalseter battling for 2nd. Marc Coma‘s six hours plus of time penalties has him down in 16th, but he’s banging in stage wins nonetheless.

In the cars, meanwhile, it’s still Carlos Sainz in front, but his lead over Nasser Al-Attiyah is now under five minutes. A third Volkswagen, of Mark Miller, is in 3rd waiting to capitalise if they have problems.

But there’s one man conspicuous by his absence from this year’s Dakar – and last year’s, for that matter, but it didn’t occur to me then. That man is Jean-Louis Schlesser, who won the 1999 and 2000 editions of the Dakar, both in his own Schlesser Buggy.

For the last two years, Schlesser has been the highest profile competitor in the Africa Eco Race, which was established after the Dakar was cancelled in 2007 and moved to South America in 2008. He won last year, and he’s just done it again, with an hour and a half gap to his nearest competitor.

It’s worth reading Schlesser’s Wikipedia entry, if you’ve the mind to. I didn’t realise, for example, that he had a very brief, but memorable Formula 1 career, or that he raced in the British Touring Car Championship.

But then, there is a great deal that I don’t know.

Today is rest day on the 2010 Dakar, so a good opportunity to check who’s where.

The first matter has to be Luca Manca, who after generously giving his wheel to Marc Coma on stage 5, had a serious accident early in stage 6. He remains in a critical condition.

At the front in the bikes it is, as expected, Cyril Despres and Marc Coma. Despres has a lead over Coma of over an hour. Coma only made it back up to 2nd position after stage 7 yesterday, the longest of the event. He was as low as 14th after stage 2, when he had a 22 minute penalty applied for speeding through a village. After mechanical problems on stage 3, and huge tyre damage on stage 5, Coma was 1 hour 16 minutes behind the leader. That’s been reducing since, but he’ll probably need Despres to have problems to be in with a chance of the win. It’s not unlikely.

Early leader David Casteu went out on stage 5, after a nasty fall, and stage 2 winner David Fretigne lost a lot of time on stage 3. So in current 3rd place it’s Portuguese Helder Rodrigues, the highest placed 450cc rider. Proving that consistency is key on the Dakar, 4th overall is Pal Anders Ullevalseter, who hasn’t finished higher than 5th on an individual stage. Francisco Lopez Contardo was running 2nd after stage 6, having won stage 5, but dropped to 5th after stage 7.

It’s going to script in the cars too, with three Volkswagens out on their own at the front. Carlos Sainz leads, with Nasser Al-Attiyah about 11 minutes behind him, and Mark Miller another 11 minutes back.

A couple of X-Raid BMWs – those of Guerlain Chicherit and Stephane Peterhansel – have had more problems, and find themselves a couple of hours behind the leader. Their team-mate Nani Roma went out on stage 3.

Robby Gordon has had mixed luck in the Hummer, winning stage 4, but losing almost four and a half hours over the first seven stages, including about two hours due to a mechanical problem on stage 7. He’s in 10th.

One of the great things about the Dakar is the spirit of co-operation, helpfulness and outright generosity. There’s so much of it going on, inevitably not all the stories make it into the TV coverage.

Take stage 5, which took place yesterday. One such act of kindness involved front-running bike competitor Marc Coma of Spain, so did make it into the highlights.

Coma suffered massive tyre damage, rendering the bike useless. To the rescue came Dakar rookie Luca Manca, from Italy, who gave his wheel to Coma. Manca was running 4th overall before the day’s stage, so it was no small gesture, and there was no reason compelling him to make it. Manca in turn was then given a wheel by Dutchman Henk Knuiman – Coma’s team-mate – allowing him to complete the stage.

There’s not been much room in broadcasts for the adventures of ProDakar, Alister McRae’s Dakar team, running the new McRae 4×2 Buggy. There are two of them left in the event: Chris Leyds, who had Alister McRae as co-driver in a McRae Enduro last year; and Tim Coronel, who last year took part in a Bowler Nemesis with his twin brother, WTCC driver Tom Coronel.

As with many teams on the Dakar, there’s a good website charting their progress. Stage 5 was eventful for Coronel. The Afraja Team truck helped them get over a clutch problem during the special stage, only for the 4×2 to suffer again on the liaison. This time it was the Jumbo Rally Team truck – of former Formula 1 driver Jan Lammers – which helped out, towing them back to service.

Not that the Jumbo Rally Team had an easy day. Lammers’s website provides updates on his Dakar, and on stage 5 they were helped on their way by the GNIF service truck of Edwin van Ginkel.

There’s so much on the web about the Dakar, I could probably keep finding interlinked stories for hours. It’s a fantastically positive winter distraction from the tedious, negative politics of Formula 1 and so forth.

I only found out very late in last year’s event, but full TV coverage of the Dakar is freely available online. What’s more, the commentary is by Toby Moody, virtually everyone’s favourite motorsport commentator.

You’ll find it right here, thanks to Australian broadcaster SBS. That stands for Special Broadcasting Service, fact fans.

So you can go and watch Nani Roma’s massive roll on stage 2, if you’ve not seen it yet. And pretty much everything else that’s happened so far, for that matter.

It’s well worth following @tobymoody on Twitter too, for photos and other interesting behind the scenes morsels, as he follows the rally across South America. He really does seem like a splendid man.

Meanwhile, Carlton Kirby is once again voicing the Eurosport coverage – which the likes of me don’t get on Freeview. There are daily highlight videos on the Eurosport website, which he doesn’t voice, but they’re shorter and less informative than the SBS coverage.

It is worth reading the Q&A Carlton Kirby kindly did with me last year though, covering the Dakar and other subjects. He seems like a thoroughly splendid man too.

The official Dakar live tracking is invaluable, providing updates at each checkpoint in the day’s stage. Actually, the Dakar website as a whole is rather good, and the breaking news area isn’t much slower than the live tracking, but with the benefit of explaining why, for example, someone’s dropped 20 minutes.

So there you go. No excuses for not being up on what’s happening in South America, thanks to the wonders of modern technology.

Happy New Year. Why, that must mean it’s the Dakar. And it is. Hooray for January – albeit in respect of the Dakar only.

So, who have we got making their way across South America right about now?

After Mitsubishi’s withdrawal after last year’s event – despite having introduced a new car for it – it doesn’t look like a bad bet that Volkswagen will take a second successive car victory. The team has a pretty imposing line-up of drivers: for a start, last year’s winner Giniel De Villiers.

Then there’s rally legend Carlos Sainz, who was leading last year until a massive roll destroyed his car a couple of stages from the finish. And Nasser Al-Attiyah moves to VW; he led last year’s event too, in a BMW, but was excluded for missing waypoints midway through the event.

The line-up is completed by last year’s second place man American Mark Miller, and Dakar first timer Brazilian Mauricio Neves, who is doing awfully well on stage 2 as I write this.

BMW isn’t without a chance though. Former bike winner Nani Roma certainly got the event off to a good start, topping the standings after the first stage yesterday. Stephane Peterhansel won the Dakar three times for Mitsubishi, not to mention his six bike wins, and finds himself in a BMW. Not one to discount, then. Also in the team are Guerlain Chicherit – leading stage 2 at the time of writing – and Leonid Novitskiy.

The other man to shout about is Robby Gordon, out there once again in the ludicrous Hummer. There is no better sight than that beast flying over sand dunes. It’s insane, brilliant, and not without success – he came third last year.

In the bikes, it should be a battle between Cyril Despres and Marc Coma, who between them have won the last five runnings of the Dakar. They’re on familiar 690cc machines – both KTM – which are being phased out next year. After stage 2, though, it’s David Casteu who leads, on a new 450cc Sherco machine. Casteu won stage 1, and stage 2 was won by last year’s third place man, David Fretigne, on a 450cc Yamaha. So maybe it won’t be so straight forward for the favourites.

Which is pleasing. There are definite favourites in the cars too – I’d go for Sainz or Al-Attiyah (overall leader at the time of writing) – but at this very early stage, this year’s Dakar is already proving to be characteristically unpredictable. And we’ve got a fortnight of this stuff. Brilliant!

Motorsport on TV in 2009 – that’s the theme for this last normal week of the year

Dave getting the rights to the World Rally Championship for 2008 was a good thing, after ITV4 had become increasingly disinterested.

The first season went pretty well, with commentator Paul King easing into the channel’s trademark ‘witty banter’, and Neil Cole acquitting himself tremendously as presenter. But in 2009, it went down the toilet somewhat. Celebrities were the order of the day, and to hell with anything else.

Not all of them were bad: Shane Lynch at least knows about the sport, and at Rally GB Rupert Grint had something to say because his brother does a bit of rallying. Even Ben Shepherd was all right, because he was professional, enthusiastic and didn’t really have anything to plug.

But Sean Hughes clearly had no interest in what was going on, and with Robert Llewellyn and Rufus Hound, the plugging of other shows on Dave was absolutely painful.

I’ve nothing against talking to celebrities who happen to be there, or even shipping qualified celebrities out to the rallies. But it’s a WRC programme: stage footage should come first, and what else there is should at least be about rallying in some vague sense. Turning half the show into a low-rent chat show is not the way to go.

Alas I’m not sure it’s going to be any better in 2010, because WRC promoter ISC has awarded Motors TV rights to show daily highlights with oodles of onboard footage. So that, in the mind of the promoter, is for the hardcore fans, who are evidently expected to have pay TV of some form.

Dave, meanwhile, will continue to be there to try to attract new fans, and that probably means more tedious celebrity interviews. I hope not though, because Neil Cole knows the WRC as well as anyone, and should be fronting coverage we can all be proud of. And all enjoy, frankly.

Shouldn’t a former WRC champion find it easier to get a competitive drive in the World Rally Championship than a former Formula 1 champion?

After Subaru pulled out of the WRC, Petter Solberg struggled through most of 2009 in an aged Citroen Xsara. It was only for the last couple of rallies that he had the opportunity to get in a Ford Focus or Citroen C4 – of which he chose the latter. Last we heard, he was looking for funding for his team for next season.

On the other hand, Kimi Raikkonen, after being dropped by Ferrari, thought he might give rallying a try, having performed well in one round this season. He’s been signed up for next season by the Citroen Junior Team, backed by Red Bull, in basically the car it took Solberg most of a season to get his hands on.

It’s not quite a straight comparison though: for one thing, Solberg wants to keep running his own team.

But it is striking. The WRC, and everyone with an interest in it, is desperate to improve its profile, and importing a Formula 1 star is going to do just that. So Raikkonen is an attractive proposition: Solberg is popular with rally fans, but Raikkonen will attract new fans to rallying.

So it’s entirely understandable. But I do wonder whether Citroen, Red Bull and the WRC will be disappointed by Raikkonen as an ambassador for the sport. He’s never been keen on promotional commitments, has he?

But maybe, just maybe, the more relaxed atmosphere of rallying will bring Raikkonen out of his shell, and we’ll see the sparkling personality his fans assure us he has.

Despite being pushed hard by Mikko Hirvonen in the second half of the season, Sebastien Loeb took his sixth World Rally Championship title at Rally GB yesterday. If we can just get Petter Solberg in a consistently competitive car next year – and that looks fairly likely – then we could even have three drivers fighting for the crown next year.

Six world titles? Rubbish! Valentino Rossi took his ninth yesterday – and his seventh in the top MotoGP class.

The whole chicken celebration was slightly confusing, but easily explained by the man himself: when hens get old, they stop laying eggs, but he’s still laying eggs. Though his eggs are championships. Anyway, that’s why he had a live chicken with him on the cool down lap. He’s a funny little man.

What about Casey Stoner though? Rossi and Jorge Lorenzo scything through the field was impressive, but Stoner was just astonishing, all alone at the front. If only he hadn’t been sort of ill earlier in the season, then missed three races, the championship might still be alive. But there’s always next year.

Cal Crutchlow took the Supersport World Championship title in Portugal yesterday, and will partner the returning James Toseland in World Superbike in 2010, in the factory Yamaha squad.

Meanwhile Ben Spies, who will take Toseland’s place at Tech 3 Yamaha in MotoGP, took the Superbike World Championship title on his very first attempt. Poor old Noriyuki Haga finished second in the championship yet again.

Top Brit in the championship Johnny Rea took an impressive double podium, so with a season’s experience under his belt, big things will be expected of him next year on that factory Honda.

Encouraging signs too for British Superbike champion Leon Camier, who finished 6th and 7th in the races in Portugal. His plans for next year are yet to be announced, but surely the world stage beckons, whether it’s World Superbike, World Supersport or Moto2.

The Petter Solberg World Rally Team has been one of this year’s success stories, in much the same vein as Brawn GP in Formula 1 or the RML-run Racing Silverline team in the BTCC – though perhaps to a more modest extent.

For next year’s World Rally Championship, Solberg plans to stick with the Citroen C4 he recently got his hands on, if support from Citroen is forthcoming. But first he needs to secure a title sponsor. He told autosport.com:

“We are talking to lots of people and I’m sure one of them will come through, but without that title sponsor, nothing is going to happen. What about the AUTOSPORT World Rally Team? That would work!”

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: the WRC without at least one Solberg brother would be very dull indeed. They’re about the only drivers with anything approaching a personality.