We've been getting a lot of feedback both here and on other bike forums about a couple of key points. One has been our commentary line-up for this season and the other about not being able to record red button coverage. Both of these issues have been exacerbated by Eurosport losing the rights to show MotoGP for the forthcoming season leaving the BBC as the exclusive broadcaster for the sport.

First and foremost I want to point out that any decision about rights is made by Dorna, the rights holder, and not by the BBC. We are in the last year of a pre-existing contract and are delighted to have signed a new deal starting in 2010 which will take us through to the end of the 2013 season.

To give the situation some context our coverage attracts average audiences of 1.1 million with an approval rating that has been the highest for any terrestrial programme in a given week. We believe the BBC team is key to that success and we are looking forward to another exciting season in 2009. In terms of presentation, Suzi Perry has a wealth of experience from years of fronting motorbike racing and our pitlane reporter Matthew Roberts has worked as a journalist within the MotoGP paddock for eight years before joining the BBC and has excellent connections with the teams enabling us to break key stories last year.

Charlie Cox and Steve Parrish will once again be in the commentary box. Charlie is an experienced lead commentator with a great passion for and extensive knowledge of motorbikes whilst Steve raced at the very highest level finishing fifth in the world championship.

We have taken on board feedback about the non-recordable nature of the red button when viewed on certain platforms and as a result we will be looping the qualifying on Saturday afternoon and evening and will do the same with the races on Sunday into the following week. A timetable for this will appear on the website at the start of the season and will be updated race by race.

The inability to record via the red button is a Sky box issue rather than a specifically BBC one but we are doing all we can to enable you to watch the sessions you may have missed live. We will also be supplying additional Freeview details so you will be able to record our coverage when viewing the red button. There have also been questions about why we can't use our other channels to show the 125 and 250 classes. Under the terms of the licence we can't turn BBC Three or Four into a sports channel although we can use them occasionally and they are unavailable during the day as the bandwidth is used by CBeebies and CBBC.

One final point to answer is whether the BBC signing F1 will affect the MotoGP coverage and the answer is yes, but only in a positive way. We will be working with the F1 team to maximize opportunities to promote MotoGP. David Coulthard is part of the F1 team and a bike fan too who has come to the race in Brno for the last few years. The races don't clash as the rights holders are keen to avoid this and the start times are offset on dates where both series are racing. The British MotoGP will follow the Hungarian F1 meaning we get to put the Donington race on BBC One, which is fantastic.

Coverage of any sport is hugely subjective. We always review our coverage at the end of the season and I frequently read the comments posted on a variety of websites including this one. We are very proud of our coverage and in being able to bring top-class bike racing to a wider audience, we believe we have the best team to lead our programme. I am always keen to get feedback and to find out what you'd like to see in the show so please let me know below.

The BBC team are in reflective mood this weekend as the programme looks back over the year, a season in which Ducati and Stoner stunned the paddock with an awesome display of superiority that left everyone else playing catch-up. Matt Roberts has caught up with the new World Champion whilst Suzi gives Valentino a chance to air his frustrations after a difficult season.

In the other classes Jorge Lorenzo has been crowned the 250cc champion for the second year in succession and will head to MotoGP next season as Rossi’s new team-mate. However, the 125cc title has gone down to the wire and will be decided here in Valencia. Don’t forget we have full coverage of these races from 0945 GMT on Sunday on BBCi - just press your red button. Briton’s Bradley Smith has had a mixed season in 125cc this year taking his first podium spot along the way. He’s secured a fantastic ride for 2008 and will be talking to Suzi after the MotoGP race.

But as one season draws to a close so another starts and the work for 2008 begins in earnest on Monday when Steve Parrish gets to test some of this year’s bikes. First up it’s the Honda and then on Tuesday he’ll ride Casey’s championship winning Ducati. Steve’s already had the chance to ride the Suzuki and Kawasaki this year, the only other person apart from the official riders so far, and it will be interesting to see how they compare. We’ll bring you the lowdown in our first programme from Qatar in 2008.

So that’s it for now. Any feedback on what you loved or hated this year or things you’d like us to do in 2008 then let us know. I’m off on my own adventure for the next few months whilst I take some maternity leave but I’ll be back in time to do it all again in just over four months – the new season kicks off on 9 March, we’ll see you then.

James’ triumph was covered by the website, by News 24 and on the radio. Many of the complaints have focused around the lack of coverage on the Six and Ten o’clock news and I have spoken to them about this.

It was a huge weekend for sport especially on Sunday with the Rugby World Cup, F1 and a full Premier League fixture list. News has limited time within these bulletins and there simply wasn’t room for all the stories that day.

James’ achievement isn’t going unnoticed though. 5Live will have an extended interview with him this Sunday between 5-6pm, Inside Sport will be catching up with him on Monday 29 October and his achievement will be recognised during the Sports Personality of the Year programme in December.

Clearly we’re delighted at his success and it will be great to see him competing in MotoGP next year, where you’ll get a chance to watch every race live.

The MotoGP team are in Australia this weekend and will be welcoming home a triumphant Casey Stoner; he claimed the title at the last race out in Japan. It’s an early start again so set your alarm clocks for 0545 BST but if you can’t face that then the race will be re-run on BBC 1 at 1300 BST.

I’ll be back here in London with one of the other MotoGP producers on site in Oz so it’s a very early start for us too.

Over in Philip Island, Steve Parrish will again be heading up the Sheene charity ride along with Barry’s son Freddie, and then Freddie will unveil a special Sheene liveried Suzuki that Chris Vermulen will be riding this weekend.

Barry was very much Chris’ mentor which is why he rides #71 (the iconic number 7 was already taken by the time Chris arrived in the MotoGP paddock).

There’s no rest for the teams as they head onto Malaysia next weekend for the penultimate round where we should have a decision on the proposed switch to a single tyre manufacturer for 2008 and we’ll be catching up with Nicky Hayden as well.

Last year Sepang saw an epic race between Valentino Rossi and Loris Capirossi so let’s hope for more of the same this time around.

Without doubt the new tyre rules have played their part but the teams have also struggled to compete with the outstanding Ducati package. Honda failed to mount a defence of Nicky Hayden’s title and Yamaha have not been able to deliver Rossi the speed he needed to keep up with Casey.

It could all be decided on Sunday but the Ducati rider still needs Rossi to finish 15 points behind him and I’m not sure the season is over yet.

Once the racing finishes on Sunday, the teams are heading off for three long-haul races in Asia and Australasia. We’ll have live coverage of these with a Sunday lunchtime re-run, just in case you’re not an early riser!

It all starts in Japan where Charlie Cox will be catching up with Casey Stoner – will he be the World Champion or standing on the brink of his first world title?

Then onto Philip Island where Australian Stoner is guaranteed a hero’s welcome at his home track and the greats of Aussie racing will be delivering their verdict on Casey’s stunning first season with Ducati. Steve Parrish will be going the extra mile and then some, joining Freddie Sheene for the ‘Sheene Run’, which last year saw more than 750 bikers ride more than 250km to the track in aid of charity, and Suzuki will be revealing something rather special!

The final part of the long-haul trilogy is in Malaysia where we’ll be catching up with 2006 World Champion Nicky Hayden and hearing from Jorge Lorenzo, currently leading the 250cc Championship, and the man who will be Rossi’s team-mate next year. Many are expecting sparks to fly in that garage in 2008!

So will Casey be World Champion or not by Sunday night? My money is on the championship going to the next round but MotoGP has a habit of throwing up surprises when you least expect it!

Since I last wrote we have had the news that James Toseland has signed for Tech 3 Yamaha next season. It’ll be fantastic to have a British rider back on the grid and the bike should be much more competitive next year. We’ll be hearing from James and catching up with his new team boss Herve Poncharal at Brno this weekend.

So, seven races left and whilst Casey Stoner has a strong grip on the Championship, 44 points clear of the rest of the field, we all know from last year that anything is possible and you can never write off Valentino Rossi. In fact Nicky Hayden’s lead was 51 points over ‘The Doctor’ at this point last year, though it’s hard to see Stoner having such a difficult second-half of the season as Hayden had last year. Casey is so self assured that it’s easy to forget that he is only 21 and he and the Ducati really seemed to have clicked.

Three European races are next up, including the new round at Misano. It’s a great place – the team have been there before for World Superbikes. We stay on the Rimini coast and it’s about a 10 minute drive inland to the track which can be very hot and humid. This will be Valentino’s home round as he comes from Tavullia which is about 15km from the circuit. His fan club are planning to walk from there to the track and our intrepid reporter Matt Roberts is hoping to join them. New tracks are always interesting as the teams all start practice on Friday with no data and we get to see who can adapt the quickest to the new conditions.

Back in Europe we’ll be doing Qualifying and MotoGP Extra on BBCi alongside our full race build-up whilst we we’ll be continuing our coverage of the 125 and 250 races on BBCi for the rest of the season giving you the chance to catch up with the other British riders competing in the World Championships.

Then it’s off to Asia and Australia for three more races before heading back to Europe for the final showdown in Valencia. If Casey continues his current run of results, there is a strong possibility that he could head to Philip Island and win the title on home soil which would be amazing. The Australian GP has always been one of my favourite rounds, it’s a stunning track perched on the edge of the cliffs with breathtaking views. It’s a long way to go but always worth the trip.

I don’t think anyone, at the start of the season, would have predicted that Casey would have such a convincing lead at this point in the Championship - I hope that the rest of the season continues to throw up a few suprises too.

We left Donington on Sunday night and drove back to London. Within 12 hours I was walking in the gates of SW19. The first morning is always a bit chaotic regardless of how much preparation we do and this year was no different, not helped by pretty grim weather and then the Henman match meant we stayed on air till 9.30 in the evening – so it was a very long day indeed!

The last time I wrote was just before the British GP and despite the weather's best attempts to spoil race day, the programme went really well. Murray Walker joined us for the weekend and it was an absolute pleasure to have him around. If you missed his interview with Valentino Rossi we have put the whole 15 minutes on the website. Steve Parrish managed to find a break in the weather to ride the Kawasaki – given that the bike is worth around half a million pounds these rides always make me nervous but he brought the bike back safely and was full of praise for it.

Somehow in all this I also had to hop over to Holland for a couple of days for the Dutch TT and try to find time to plan the German Grand Prix which takes place at the weekend. We now have the key stories set up with interviews with local rider Alex Hoffman and World Champion Nicky Hayden as well as a feature we did a few weeks ago when we sent Steve Parrish and Casey Stoner to an oil refinery to see how the race fuel is made. Given Steve’s reputation for practical jokes I am amazed they let him anywhere near the place!

We're halfway through the season now and I have to admit it always feels easier once the British GP is out of the way.

Just in case you missed the news, you can now get coverage of the 125 and 250 races on BBCi, just press the red button. Coverage starts at 0945 on Sunday morning. And despite his huge crash in Holland, Britain’s Bradley Smith will be back racing again at Sachsenring this weekend in the 125 class proving just how tough bike racers are.

MotoGP coverage is as normal:

Saturday 14 July
Qualifying, BBCi and BBC Sport website, 1245-1400

Sunday 15 July
MotoGP, 125cc, 250cc races live, BBC Two and BBC Sport website, 1230-1400
MotoGP Extra, BBCi and BBC Sport website, 1400-1430

It’s always a real privilege to cover your home Grand Prix, particularly as the championship this year has already produced some great racing this season and Donington is another good track for the riders.

However, the weather is also threatening to play its part - with torrential rain forecast for the weekend, the campsite may well be giving Glastonbury a run for its money at this rate. It could also turn the pre-race predictions on their head as we saw in Le Mans where Chris Vermulen took his maiden win earlier in the season.

Nicky Hayden hooks up with football star Michael Owen and the legendary Murray Walker will be talking to Valentino Rossi. Murray has commentated on many of the great bike racers and is full of admiration for The Doctor’s extraordinary talent.

I can't tell you too much about it as we're filming it tonight!

And if that’s not enough, Steve Parrish has yet again been allowed out on an 800 - this time it’s the Kawasaki. He’s still the only person, apart from the official riders, to test one of the new bikes and now he can compare the ZX-RR to his earlier ride on the Suzuki in Jerez.

Steve's lap was all done with on-board cameras supplied by BBC Special Facilities, one overhead rig they built specially for us and two standard mini-cams attached to the bike.

With these bikes being worth around $1m, I’m just relieved he didn’t crash it!

You can catch all the action this weekend on the BBC - qualifying on Saturday 23 June from 1345-1500 on BBCi - just hit your red button and join us to see how the grid will form up for Sunday. On Sunday we've got an extended build-up to the race starting at 1215 on BBC TWO and then all the behind the scenes news after the race on MotoGP Extra at 1400 via your red button. If you can't get to your telly, all the action will also be streamed live via the website at bbc.co.uk/motorbikes.

It’ll be a busy weekend for sure and with most of us leaving here on Sunday night and heading to work at Wimbledon the next morning, it’ll be quite a contrast!!

This weekend we’re at the Mugello circuit, deep in the heart of Tuscany. It's a picturesque place, at least until 130,000 bike fans descend on this small area. They camp in the hills around the circuit and have to be seen, and more importantly heard, to be believed. It’s an all-night party which seems to involve an endless revving of bikes. And it’s not just bikes. This lot even bring engines without the bikes, just to add to the noise.

It also means it’s impossible to get out of the circuit on Sunday night. The first year the TV team stayed in Florence, which is about 60 miles away, and it took a ridiculous nine hours to get back to our hotel! Now, we stay closer to the track and leave the cars in a nearby village, then walk for about an hour to get in. And people think this life is glamorous!

In the yellow corner, Valentino Rossi, who has won here for the last five years, will be supported by his loyal fan club, who are also responsible for his spectacular post-race celebrations. The skittles in Jerez has to be one of my favourites.

In the red corner are the Ducati fans. The team is based in Bologna, just an hour down the road, and their new signing Casey Stoner tops the standings by 21 points. Rossi had yet another disappointing race in Le Mans, finishing a lowly sixth, afflicted not for the first time this season with tyre trouble. The five-time champion will be looking to re-establish his title credentials here. There have been a few sporting spectacles lately that have failed to live up to the hype, but whatever happens here on Sunday it definitely won’t be dull.

Our team go home on Monday morning and we will have just enough time to put our kit through the wash before heading back out to Barcelona. The Catalunya Grand Prix attracts huge crowds who will no doubt be cheering for local boy Dani Pedrosa.

He was tipped by many as the one to watch this season. And although he has struggled with the new Honda, he still hangs onto third in the championship. However, this has definitely turned into a year to forget for his team-mate Nicky Hayden - the world champion is down in 11th place and was devastated by a crash two laps from the end of Le Mans which denied him a fourth-place finish and 13 valuable points.

Catalunya last year will be remembered for a huge first-corner collision caused by Sete Gibernau’s Ducati becoming entangled with team-mate Loris Capirossi. It sent them both flying into the gravel along with Marco Melandri, Dani Pedrosa and Randy de Puniet. Hopefully this year’s race will be less eventful.

Now, I’m not sure if it’s global warming or we’ve just been unlucky but, yet again, as I write this it’s cold and there are threatening clouds overhead. It’s Italy in June for goodness sake, and so far I’ve spent this season being cold and wet at pretty much every track to which we've been. We even had showers in Qatar. Hopefully the sun will be shining come race day. Whatever, the action on the track will definitely be hot!

We’d arrived in China for the last round and all was fine, but by race day Suzi was running a high temperature and had a nasty throat infection - so there was no possibility of her doing the show. It’s the first programme she’s ever missed through illness in her career at the BBC and she was really upset.

In her absence the rest of the team rallied round on Sunday morning to get us on air, we had just three hours to completely rewrite the show and get the necessary pictures to London.

It was pretty stressful all round but by the time we came off air I was hugely proud of what we’d achieved in difficult circumstances.

Back to this coming weekend and bike fans are in for a treat with three-and-a-half hours of bike racing on BBC TWO on Sunday. First up is MotoGP with all the usual build-up, the race and then the added bonus of MotoGP Extra (which is on BBC TWO rather than via the red button).

MotoGP Extra is our BBCi show which offers extended post race reaction, includes highlights of 125 and 250 races and a chance to hear from all the British riders. If you never seen it before it’s definitely worth staying tuned for.

Then it’s more bike action, this time closer to home in Northern Ireland - with highlights of last weekend’s NW200. And if that’s not enough don’t forget you can watch the MotoGP qualifying via the red button at 1245 BST on Saturday.

We’re about to start a really busy period of bike racing with seven races in the next 10 weeks, so the pressure is on the riders - especially with regard to injuries. Last season, Loris Capirossi’s title hope were wrecked with that huge crash in Catalunya.

Four races into the new season and Casey Stoner tops the championship standings. The young Aussie has stunned the paddock by wining three races so far. I don’t think anyone would have predicted that he would be leading Valentino by 15 points so early on. The new 800 Ducati is a fantastic bike and a huge credit must go to the small team in Bologna who have done an amazing job. The straight line speed of the bike is amazing to witness.

Things have also been looking good for Suzuki this season and we were delighted to see Hopkins get his first podium in Shanghai. He’s waited a long time for it and he was so pleased. His mechanics were very quiet on the plane home from China after a big night celebrating!

The disappointment so far has been with the Honda, and the riders all seem to be struggling with the new bike. As part of our build-up to the race on Sunday we have sent Steve to look at what the problems are. Meanwhile, Suzi has caught up with Nicky Hayden, the reigning world champion. He’s very frustrated at not being able to mount a proper defence of his title.

Looking ahead, it’s just over a month to the British Grand Prix at Donington Park on 24 June, and our preparations are already underway. We’ll have an extended build-up to the race and we’re delighted that Steve’s been given the chance to ride the Kawasaki race bike at the start of the weekend. He is still the only person - apart from the team riders - to have ridden an 800, when he did some laps of Jerez on the Suzuki, so it’ll be interesting to see how he feels the two bikes compare.

I’m BBC Sport’s TV motorsport producer and I’m going to start writing here regularly so I can answer your questions and comments – to start off with, I thought I’d deal with some of the issues that most frequently come up in the e-mails sent to our website.

A question we are often asked these days is: “Why don’t we broadcast MotoGP in widescreen?” All the broadcasters take their race coverage from the host broadcaster, Dorna, and they only offer this in 4:3 ratio.

I don’t know what other broadcasters do, but the BBC always transmit live sport as it originates, rather than zooming in to create a false widescreen, which can degrade the quality of the picture. The rights holders are currently experimenting with HD and hope to be able to offer race coverage in High Definition (HD) from 2008 or 2009, which will also mean you get to see the races in widescreen.

However, we will be covering the NW200
for the first time this year on Sunday 20th May, as well as the TT which this year celebrates it’s centenary. All the details can be found on the BBC bikes website.

Finally why did we choose MotoGP over WSB or BSB when the other series have more Brits racing up the front? First and foremost MotoGP is the premier class of bike racing, showcasing the extraordinary talents of riders such as Valentino Rossi, Dani Pedrosa and Casey Stoner amongst others. The lack of a British rider on a competitive bike in MotoGP is a big issue and one which we are working hard with the rights holders to address.

There are some good prospects coming up through the other classes and Bradley Smith in the 125 championship is certainly a name to look out for in the future, but it’ll be a few years before he gets to MotoGP. James Toseland is having a good season in WSB and his name keeps cropping up in the MotoGP paddock, so hopefully we’ll get to see him here on a competitive bike next year.

The team have been in Shanghai for the and the long-hauls are always a challenge. In Europe we have an Outside Broadcast truck and a team of people that help put the show together, but it’s a much smaller outfit for the fly-away races. Suzi, Matt, Charlie and Steve present and commentate on the race, my cameraman and soundman come from New Zealand and I get to do pretty much everything else - filming the features, engineering the commentary box and directing on race day.

Right, the next MotoGP stop is Le Mans - let's hope for another weekend of breathtaking racing!