Motorcycling: Fogarty prepares for season in Australia

Carl Fogarty expects to find out how competitive his new Foggy Petronas Racing team are likely to be during tests in Australia next week.

The four-time World Superbike champion is putting the finishing touches to his team's preparations and will test at Phillip Island next week followed by three days at Sepang in Malaysia the week after. His team's World Superbike Championship debut will come when the season starts at Valencia in March, by when he expects to have an idea of how competitive the FP1 bike will be.

The Briton said: "Whatever happens in the next two tests is probably going to reflect how we will kick off at the first race of the year. We are hoping for a little more power and reliability from the engine so that we can get some race distances under our belts."

A safety car will be used to signal the suspension of MotoGP grands prix disrupted by rain from next season, the International Motorcycling Federation has announced. Each race will be classified as "wet" or "dry" beforehand and if the race director decides conditions in a "dry" race have been affected sufficiently for riders to want to change tyres, the race will be "neutralised" and a safety car will appear.

The 125cc and 250cc category races will continue to be stopped and re-started, with times from the two parts added together to give the final result.