It’s now obligatory for any new team to be compared to Brawn GP, and specifically whether they’ll ‘do a Brawn’. Everyone’s at it.

The reborn Kawasaki MotoGP team, Hayate, is one such team. Marco Melandri is very unlikely to emulate Jenson Button, but they are looking stronger than Kawasaki last year. Which isn’t difficult, really.

It came up at the weekend too, when Jason Plato scraped together a deal with RML to run a Chevrolet Lacetti in the BTCC. His victory in the third race – which I saw coming – makes him, I think, closest to having done a Brawn.

Although you could argue that Petter Solberg did a Brawn before Brawn GP. After Subaru withdrew from the WRC, Solberg put together his own team and scored a podium finish on their first attempt, at the second rally of the season in Norway.

In fact, Solberg has been more remarkable than either Brawn or Plato. Honda spent a lot of time and money developing the car which Brawn ultimately inherited; Plato’s car had been run by the same team in the WTCC with great success. So at least they have the benefit of top machinery.

Solberg, on the other hand, is running a four year old Citroen Xsara WRC. Yet, having competed in only three of the four rallies so far, he currently sits joint 4th in the championship. Which is frankly astonishing.

It’s fortunate that Solberg is performing well, because if not he could have been cast in an unfortunate light at the weekend. Marcus Gronholm was attempting to do a Brawn himself in Rally Portugal, driving a Subaru Impreza run by Prodrive – the car Solberg struggled with all last season. Gronholm was running 4th until he crashed out.