First, the good news: Silverstone is ready to host the 2010 British Grand Prix and the revised layout has been granted FIA Grade One status pending what circuit boss Richard Phillips describes as “a couple of tweaks”. This in itself is a remarkable achievement given the severity of the last winter; my local sports centre has been retiling its swimming pool since November and it still hasn’t reopened yet.

The chief motivation for amending the layout was Silverstone’s new contract to host Britain’s MotoGP round. Bridge corner was adjudged too dangerous – you wouldn’t want a bike to have the same shunt as Andrea de Cesaris did in the Jordan in 1991 – but the bridge itself is integral to the circuit infrastructure, and for reasons too boring to go into at length they couldn’t just build a bigger one. Ron and Leon Haslam essayed several laps on a pair of roadgoing superbikes, while David Coulthard appeared in the Red Bull demo car (which I think is a 2006 Toro Rosso chassis with the 2009 RBR nose and rear wing), and Damon Hill took HRH the Duke of York round in the Santander two-seater.

It’s too early to call the possible effects of the new section but it represents an effective and imaginative use of existing space. Village corner has a tricky approach (complicated for the demo runs yesterday by ‘green’ asphalt, lots of dust, and a large stage directly in the drivers’ sight line), the effects of which were more pronounced for the bikes, which had a very gradual turn-in phase. The short squirt to the Loop will emphasise traction and may provide a further overtaking opportunity if someone has overcooked their approach to Village and run wide.

True to form for this part of the world, almost as soon as the engines were fired up after lunch the skies began to bruise. I was due to have a run in the Santander two-seater once the BBC finished filming, and after commiserating with one of the Motorcycle News testers (green surface? Dust? Rain? On a GSX-R1000? After you, Claude) I donned my flameproof garb. As I finished lacing up my Sparcos I realised it had all gone rather quiet. Enter the two-seater, on the back of a truck.

David Coulthard had been driving Martin Brundle round at the time, and apparently the radio conversation went something like this:

MB: I think there’s something wrong with the engine.

DC: No, it seems okay.

[PAUSE]

[**GRAUNCH**]

DC: Yeah, there’s something wrong with the engine…

A very long afternoon ensued as the mechanics traced the fault – a blown crank oil seal – and finally had to give up and call for a new engine. Still, there was amusement to be had. I learned that my otherwise risible phone insists on trying to substitute “Trundle” for “Brundle”.

My optimism ebbed and flowed as the clock ticked around towards the curfew point of 7pm. At around four o’clock the skies cleared and the sun shone once more. Almost everyone else except the various camera crews had gone home. I felt as if I was going to have the last laugh on this one. What a shame the car was still in several pieces, on axles stands, with a puddle of oil underneath.

It was half past six before the beast was reassembled and Martin set out for an installation lap with Sky’s John Desborough shoehorned into the back seat. In very short order a man in a suit appeared brandishing a walkie talkie. This is never a good sign, and indeed he seemed very put out that the car had sallied forth without appropriate clearance. Off he flounced, still gesticulating with his walkie talkie, muttering darkly that at 7pm the ambulance (an insurance requirement) was going to leave and that would be that.

The vindictive clouds chose this moment to gather again and deposit their contents upon this hallowed loop of Northamptonshire asphalt. Cue further delay as the car, now with James Allen strapped in the back, took wet tyres. You can see the video of their journey, including the new section of track, on James’s site.

I had the fireproof gear on and was about to slip on my crash helmet when the grumpy troll in his ambulance arrived at the back of the garage to signify that playtime was over.

So, a disappointing end to the day, but nothing that a restorative pint of Kingfisher, a deluxe mixed starter and a chicken jalfrezi at Farnham’s finest curry house couldn’t sort out. And there’s always a next time…

In the great tradition of Apple advertising (“Some sequences shortened”) we’ll flash past the bit where I leave my phone at home and nearly miss the train to London. Let’s begin at the taxi rank outside Waterloo station on a grey and chilly February morning.

“Take me to Stirling’s please.”

“Wot?”

“Stirling’s”

“You wot, Guv?”

“Stirling Moss’s house.”

“Where’s that, then?”

Thus was another panel stitched into life’s rich tapestry of small disappointments. Still, at least he didn’t say, “I had that Michael Jackson in the back the other week…”

I undertook the last part of the journey on foot and was shivering by the time I reached the door.

“My dear chap,” said Stirling, “you should stand in the loo for a few minutes. It’s much warmer in there.”

So Mrs Lady Moss decanted me into their beautifully toasty ground floor facility for a few moments before popping back with a steaming mug of tea. This all had a suitably restorative effect and the interview proceeded according to plan.

So, yes, a bit of an odd start to an interview, but not as strange as the time Gary Numan walked into the room carrying a bowl of Doritos and said, “Nibbles?”

As my EasyJet flight pushed back from the stand – only 40 mins late – at Nice airport today, I heard someone on the row behind say, “Look, the bloke just drove off and left those bags on the ground.”

I pulled my nose out of my book and looked out. Hmm. One of them appeared to be mine…

After finally getting to the front of a passport queue that seemed to start in Cornwall (never mind, there’s a couple more years to sort Gatwick out before the Olympics roll around), I arrived without optimism in the baggage hall. Miraculously, there was my case.

So, a happy ending for me – but let’s raise a glass tonight for those poor folk whose dirty laundry is still sitting on the Tarmac…

Still, the new-look South Terminal now has a Pret, so you can cushion the awfulness of budget travel with the comforting stodge that is the all-day breakfast sandwich. The chief weakness of this giant among comestibles is also its greatest strength: it’s almost impossible to eat with any decorum, which ensures that your neighbours (who may be serial dingbats, and I’ve found it’s better to err on the side of caution in these encounters) avoid looking at you, let alone try to make conversation.

The reality of life as a freelancer is a gruelling slog of these crack-of-dawn flights, so you have to evolve coping strategies. Other people are clearly at this game, too. I saw a guy this morning trying to read a collection of Philip Larkin poems as the morass of humanity swarmed around him en route to WH Smith. I imagined him navigating past the give-us-20-quid-and-you-might-win-a-Porsche stand: “Bog off,” he’ll have told the ticket tout, “I want to read An Arundel Tomb before my gate opens. ‘How soon succeeding eyes begin to look, not read…’”

I’ve never quite worked out which is the worst out of EasyJet and Ryanair, so, as the gaudy aluminium tube progressed slowly from the gate to the runway, I tried to plot this dilemma in the form of a Venn diagram. You could probably do something similar on a spreadsheet using the principles of double-entry book keeping.

As we reached cruising altitude I deployed the behemoth. True to form, the elderly couple on my left clocked the bacon, egg and tomato ooze and pretended to be asleep. This turned out to be a very good thing, because the man was one of those people who is compelled to provide a running commentary.

“That must be the gate we’re going to go to,” he told his wife just after we landed (at which point, since all my fillings were in place, I decided that perhaps EasyJet is the better airline). “There’s the man waving his little sticks. Look! There he is! You can see through the window as the plane turns round! There he is! Waving his little sticks!”

I preferred him when he was snoring.

Thence to the bus, because €70 for a cab is plain barmy. Hearing my car crash French, the lady at the ticket counter merely boggled at me, as if I were Inspector Crabtree out of ‘Allo ‘Allo. Luckily I ended up in Monaco rather than Montreaux – although, sadly, not quite the right bit of Monaco.

Anyway, I’m here now, in a cheapoid self-catering apartment that’s costing only £10 more for the entire stay than the conference hotel is charging for a single night. I think I’d better nip out and explore the lay of the land: although the apartments looked very close on the map when I booked, I’d somehow forgotten that Monaco is built on the side of a cliff…

The centrepiece of the night is the McLaren AUTOSPORT BRDC Award. It’s not an automatic ticket to success – one or two of the winners have fallen down the cracks – but the majority of the drivers who have taken home this award have risen to the top of international motorsport. Aside from BRDC membership, a drive in a McLaren F1 car, Puma racewear and a clonking great TW Steel watch, the prize includes a £50,000 cheque. Money helps young drivers kick down the right doors and last year’s winner, Alexander Sims, has been mightily impressive in the F3 Euroseries this year.

Hoping to follow in the footsteps of David Coulthard, Dario Franchitti, Anthony Davidson and Jenson Button are: James Calado and Dean Smith (frontrunners in Formula Renault UK); American Star Mazda champion Adam Christodoulou; Callum MacLeod from the European F3 Open; and James Cole and Chrissy Palmer from British Formula Ford. Each of them had to perform for an expert judging panel in a variety of machinery (and on used as well as fresh tyres) over two days at Silverstone last month.

The headline names on the judging panel are Damon Hill, Anthony Davidson and Jamie Green; but the people who supply the context are the Nationals team from AUTOSPORT: Kevin Turner, Ben Anderson and the legendary Marcus Pye, who have watched these guys race week in, week out, for several years.

Unfortunately they’re all sworn to secrecy, so you’ll have to wait until later to find out who’s won…