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.

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.