Malaysia F1 and Brands Hatch BTCC

It's the second round of the Formula 1 Championship this weekend in the humiditiy of Malaysia, while British Touring Cars head to Kent, and my favourite circuit, Brands Hatch.  Of the two, Brands Hatch has the simpler forecast, Sepang is delivering it's regular guessing game of when will the storms roll in, and how quickly do they clear?

So, loking at Brands Hatch, as we head into the weekend the wind turns more south easterly, bringing some warmer continental air with it, so in spite of a firm breeze temperatures should hit the mid teens on Saturday and a little higher on Sunday, and the rain risk is very low over both days.  There will be some brighter spells thorugh the weekend, but a decent amount of cloud cover too, especially on Sunday based on the latest forecast data.  Treat your mum to some of the closest and most agressive car racing you'll see outside of a stock car race for Mothers Day, she'll love it!

You can follow the forecast by selecting Brands Hatch from the drop down menu here

Meanwhile 6500ish miles away in Malaysia, it's not as clear cut, as heavy rain and storms are forecast through the weekend.  As ever, it will be humid and sticky with temperatures in the mid thirties and very little wind, so once rain arrives over the circuit it could take some time to clear away.  And when/if it does rain, it may be very heavy leading to problems with excess surface water, aquaplaning and generally a huge test for the new cars as they still haven't had a huge amount of wet track time.  The only bright points at the moment are that Sunday has been modelled as the best of the three days on the last few data runs, with a larger dry window than Friday and Saturday, and the fact that storms by their nature can be localised so while the outlook is pretty grim, there is a 40-60% chance that any of the forecast spells of rain may miss the circuit.

Don't forget the clock change this weekend - qualifying is at 8am GMT, the race 9am BST, the times on the forecast page are UK local times and will update on Sunday.

The latest forecast updates for Sepang area here.

Circuit images from Google Maps.