It's that time of year, spring has sprung, World Superbikes blew off the cobwebs with their season opener at Philip Island last weekend and F1 kicks off next week, it only seems like a month ago that the dust settled on the end of the V8 era.
Before the first F1 race next weekend in Melbourne there's BSB and MotoGP testing taking place, the BSB teams are at Cartegena, Spain right now and the Hopper, John Hopkins, is back with Tyco Suzuki and raising a few eyebrows after topping the time sheets at the end of day 1. He's not been on a race bike for 18 months, not a bad way to get bedded back in! The weather in Spain isn't too bad - though Brands Hatch is around the same temperature today - far different from the season opener at the Kent circuit in April last year, which was famously postponed owing to heavy snow, hopefully there's no repeat of that over the Easter weekend this year.
The MotoGP circus rolls into Qatar today too for the first day of the final test before the season opener at the same circuit in two weeks time, and unsuprisingly it's warm and dry, with patchy cloud at times and light breeze to 'contend' with. The first race of the season is preceded by 3 full days of practice and qualifying, so the teams will be back on track on Thursday 20th March for FP1, and with BT Sport now holding the UK TV rights, I need to work out a way to have it on in the background in the office. In case you weren't aware, there is no MotoGP on the BBC any more, so you'll need BT Sports (free with BT internet subscriptions or BT Vision, otherwise you'll need a subscription to watch it on Sky).
And that brings us round to F1, and the new era of turbo charged engines that will see around 18000bhp line up on the grid at 6am next Sunday morning. With 1.6l engines, two less cylinders, new energy recovery systems, changed aerodynamics, and new fuel and weight regulations it's going to be an interesting year as things unfold. If testing is anything to go by then the Red Bull domination could be under threat, ironic as the series returns to Austria this year on the Red Bull Ring (formerly the A1 Ring) for the first time in 11 years. The addition of a street circuit race around the Olympic city of Sochi completes the line up on 19 races, as both Korea and India took a bow last year.
The Albert Park circuit looks like it will enjoy some dry and sunny conditions in the run up to the race weekend - but, and it's a full 8 days away so subject to change, there are signs of some storms and heavy rain around that may make the season opener even more challenging than all the technical changes have already made it. We'll update the forecast early next week once things become clearer.
With the the F1 and MotoGP schedule over the next few weeks, there's going to be some Sunday afternoon napping going on in a few households around the UK.
