sway gently in the winds which sweep across the Bass Strait and buffet the circuit.But despite the ramshackle pits, cramped press room and spartan spectator facilities, the riders, teams, press and fans all love Phillip Island, and would choose

It is perhaps an interesting irony that the MotoGP circus moves from one former street circuit to another this weekend, leaving the fast, flat sweeping turns of Assen behind to visit the tight, tortuous turns of the Sachsenring circuit. But where

for the 2008 MotoGP championship will be laid over the next few weeks, and it starts on Sunday, at Le Mans. There's a long hard road ahead, and what better place to take the first step than at a track so steeped in legend? Read more articles by David Emmett

, Oude Tol, Hooghalen, Laaghalen and Laaghalerveen, but over the years, the 10 mile road circuit was shortened and turned into a dedicated closed circuit race track. Though the track was now closed to traffic, the circuit still retained the features

Barely had the engines cooled and the dust been washed off the bikes after the race at Donington before the entire MotoGP circus was busy packing and loading up to head on over to the northern reaches of the Netherlands, and the TT Circuit at Assen

's the medical profession: with so many racers of all disciplines in the area, the region's hospitals have also become specialists in racing-related injuries. Barcelona is the centre the motorcycle racing world revolves around.As a result, the circuit

racing circuit in the USA is badly lacking in one aspect or another. There are plenty of tracks with great facilities, but just about every one of these is at an oval, the result of the huge popularity of the NASCAR series, in which cars meant to resemble

And so, after the excitement of the Turkish Grand Prix, we head eastwards, from the Orient Express to the Trans-Siberian Express, leaving Istanbul to head off to Shanghai in China. Though some 5,000 miles apart, the two circuits are remarkably

.SlowhandHow ironic, then, that the German MotoGP round should take place at the Sachsenring, a circuit at which the world's fastest racing motorcycles never reach anywhere near their maximum speed - even after last year's capacity reduction to 800cc. Indeed, so

in the late 1920s, are just Johnny-Come-Latelies. For legend has it that the Misano Circuit is built on top of a site which originally hosted chariot racing back in Roman times, proof that racing has been a deeply entrenched part of human nature ever since