Welcome to the Lovecars On The Grid Podcast! Happy New Year from Tiff Needell and Paul Woodman, and welcome to Season 2 of our podcast! It's technically episode 42, but with a New Year, we're starting a new Season! Thank you for all of your support on our podcast so far, we really do appreciate it!  
In this week's motorsport roundup, the guys cover the Dakar Rally, Formula 1, BTCC and more!  
It wouldn't be our podcast without kicking off with Formula 1, where we have yet more controversy in the sport! Back at Spa in Belgium in 2021, we had a 3 lap procession, which was then called off, due to the weather. 70,000 fans were left disappointed after waiting in the rain, and unfortunately won't be getting any refund as a result! This is as a result of a decision by Liberty Media, who instead are offering a prize draw to win 1 of 170 seats at next year's Grand Prix. Poor show from Liberty Media!  
The Dakar rally is kicking off in Saudi Arabia, with some action before the race even started, with a service crew car involved in an explosion, with members airlifted to hospital. Officials haven't ruled out criminal activity yet, we wish a speedy recovery to all of those involved. Carlos Sainz is in his electric powered, Audi RSQ E-Tron, the first of it's class in the Dakar Rally with some disagreements between Audi and the race officials over the rules of the rally. Sainz actually got lost looking for a weigh station, and is currently 2 hours behind, in 48th place! He wasn't the only driver to get lost though, as teams aren't allowed to use satellite navigation systems, relying only on maps in their given road book that day.   
If you're a fan of this kind of motorsport, we plan to cover some grass roots motorsport events in our upcoming TV show, so keep your eyes peeled for that! Should we put Tiff into an endurance race? What do you think? Let us know too, if you have access into anything interesting for us! 
  It's an interesting time of the year for Formula 1, as young drivers start signing up for Formula 2 and Formula 3, could these be the future F1 stars? We can of course look at the Autosport Awards for future talent too, with George Russell and Lando Norris winning awards in the past, before they became stars in Formula 1. Names such as Jonny Edgar, Zak O'Sullivan, Louis Foster and Oli Webb are all nominated for the driver of the year awards, so these could be our future stars!  
In Touring Cars, Jake Hill has signed up to West Surrey Racing team, who are powered by ROKiT and partnered with the new NAPA sponsor.