The MotoGP season started last weekend. I will not repeat what I wrote for BlogCritics, however I will link over to my Race Report, and season preview.

Pop along, and let me know what you think, will it be a Yamaha year, or will other teams be on the Yamaha pace? It’s certain that the Ducati is quick in a straight line, after seeing Stoner at the weekend, but will it work around the twists.

As you all should know by now, F1-Blog is just that. Anyhow I've recently got back from the 1st day of the Silverstone Test and have a bunch of photo's from the session. Head on over for the lowdown.

Where all the F1 based content has disapeared to. Then wonder no more! pop over to f1-blog.co.uk for a more in depth look at one of my passions.

It seems that Mike Gascoyne and Toyota are not happy with each other, Gascoyne has been suspended due to "fundamental difference of opinion with regard to the technical operations". What that probably means is that Toyota is not happy with the strict an open way that Gascoyne runs his team.

Toyota where rumored to be paying Gascoyne the highest wage in the F1 game for his particular services, due to the fact he transformed the Renault team in his time there.

It is said that Toyota will probably assign Pascal Vasselon the job. Toyota picked him up from Michelin at the end of last year.

Not bing privy to the conversations that have gone on between Toyota and Gascoyne I cannot comment on why the break-up has actually happened; however I think if Toyota are basing this decision on performance that they should perhaps give him a little longer as he took a while at Renault to get things as he needed them; and after all the new Bridgestones are no real match for Michelin so far this year, all Bridgestone teams have struggled. However if it is the tyres that are causing the issue, there will be nobody better placed to forward the development of a fix than Vasselon.

Some good and some bad news from this weekends motorsport.

I’ll start with the bad, IRL (Indy Racing League) had a bad start to the season, losing Paul Dana in a crash on Sunday morning during practice. The crash happened on the exit of turn 2 where Dana unfortunately crashed into the back of the already demolished Ed Carpenter car. My thoughts go out to all of his loved ones.

On a more positive view the MotoGP season kicked off in fine form. The opening race finished with Ducati and Capirossi taking the top step followed by little Dani Pedrosa second, and the American Nicky Hayden on the third step. Where was Rossi? he was unfortunately tagged by Ellias at the first corner and ended up 14th after starting the race over a minute down on the leaders, with a damaged Yamaha. It should make for an interesting season!

The WRC headed for the sun of Spain as well (the MotoGP was also held in Spain). This season sees the battle between Loeb and Gronholm intensify, and now that Gronholm has a car to back him up it looks like it will be interesting. Both of the works Ford’s suffered Turbo failures on day 1 and dropped Gronholm and Hirvonen back in the times, Gronholm did well to battle through the remaining 10 stages with 7 of them being stage win’s. Well done to the Skoda drivers with 3 of the 4 cars finishing in the top 10.

Tags: WRC, MotoGP, Motor Sport

Well done to the Renault team and Fernando who managed the win the first race of the season.

There were also some other notable things to talk about, Kimi did well to finish 3rd (starting from the last place position!), Rosberg drove a great race (1 minor hiccup at the start) really quite impressive F1 debut! and the chat is that Ferrari needs to look at there rear wings, apparently Pat Symonds (Renault) as well as others are saying that it may be skirting the rules, more on that when/if there is any comeback. Toyota’s boss Tsutomu Tomita has ordered an inquest into the F1 teams complete lack of pace!

It’s nice however to see close, dynamic racing in F1…. Let’s hope it lasts, bring on Malaysia!

While I’m putting dinner together (chicken for swmbo and pork for me), I’ll put together the few car based things i have at the moment.

Mini Review of Skoda Octavia Estate PD140 DSG

I say mini review, it’s not; but we have had the car just over a week and 600miles now so here is what’s good.  The DSG gearbox is possibly the best thing to come to gearbox technology since….. Well 1876 when the first Daimler Benz had one installed. The changes in automatic mode are smooth t the point you don’t feel 3rd through 6th. In manual mode the changes are instant and it seems near impossible to catch it out (although it’s still being run in so not been used in anger yet).

I say mini review, it’s not; but we have had the car just over a week and 600miles now so here is what’s good.  The  is possibly the best thing to come to gearbox technology since….. Well 1876 when the first Daimler Benz had one installed. The changes in automatic mode are smooth t the point you don’t feel 3rd through 6th. In manual mode the changes are instant and it seems near impossible to catch it out (although it’s still being run in so not been used in anger yet).The engine seems a little loud, but so was mine before it got run in properly. It does however pull strong in all gears and feels like it needs to be loosened up and will then be even better.

The puppy loves the car, so much so that she will jump into this one on her own, and has not thrown up once yet. Whether that is because the space is nice and flat and she can get herself comfy while looking out the rear and side windows, or that she likes the smooth gear changes better I am not sure

The Black Magic colour is really going to be difficult to keep clean, but hey it looks good when it is clean.

We have not found any real problems with the car yet, there is a rattle from the drivers side door area, but it’s going in to check what it is (loose panel I would think).

In other Motoring news :- Stephane Sarrazin will be staying at Subaru for the next year and Kimi Raikkonen has been crowned international racing driver of the year by Autosport magazine.