The hitchhiker's guide to motorsport

When the motorsport season starts in earnest, there is usually something on every weekend to keep fans entertained.

But for those who are not satisfied with just following their favourite series on television - be it Formula 1, touring cars or rallying - perhaps the AUTOSPORT team can help.

Covering the breadth of racing our reporters do gives a privileged insight into some of the finest events on the planet, so it got us thinking about which ones we believe are worth your time and money.

Here's what the team came up with.

The French Monaco
Pau Grand Prix, May 15-17
Marcus Simmons, deputy magazine editor (@marcussimmons54)

Once you've been to the Pau Grand Prix once, you'll never want to miss it. There's much more to it than its headlining Formula 3 European Championship round.

You also get single-seater thrills from Formula Renault ALPS and French Formula 4, plus a never-ending programme of French national tin-top action - 21 races in total last year, with Saturday action running up to 11pm.

Pau is a lovely - and lively - little place near the foothills of the Pyrenees, with plenty of reasonable accommodation. As a student town, it's not pricey to eat or drink either, and there are plenty of bars along the main drag where racing people congregate in the evenings, not to mention the typically French street marquees selling food and drink.

It'll take you two or three hours to get there from Toulouse or Bordeaux airports by road, or you can get the train from either (albeit usually with a connection from Bordeaux) all the way to Pau - the station is right next to the first corner. Just make sure the French transport workers aren't on strike... As long as you're staying in Pau, you'll only need to walk to get from A to B.

Take your pick of viewing spots: Virage de la Gare is recommended for overtaking, the
Foch chicane for kerb-leaping madness!

The ampitheatre of RX dreams
World RX Lydden Hill, May 22-24
Hal Ridge, rallycross correspondent (@HalRidgeRX)

In an era when motor racing is becoming increasingly focused on fuel-efficient and relatively quiet technology, the opportunity to stand just feet away from rorty, snarling 600-horsepower hatchbacks racing in short, sharp races on both gravel and asphalt is one not to be missed.

Lydden Hill's natural amphitheatre is a great venue to watch World Rallycross Championship action. The entire circuit at Lydden is visible from almost everywhere, and there are no huge fences to spoil the view.

When WorldRX rolled into town (or village) last May, more than 10,000 people turned out and were treated to some fantastic action. As the series escalates in popularity, the 2015 event should be even better.

A fresh take on a classic
Austrian Grand Prix, June 19-21
Edd Straw, magazine editor (@EddStrawF1)

AUTOSPORT's correspondents find themselves billeted in some unusual locations over the year, but a guest house in the middle of the thriving campsite just behind the Red Bull Ring's Turn 1 for last year's revived Austrian GP was one of the strangest.

Surrounded by well-lubricated Austrians (and a few bovines) we were in the thick of the party atmosphere of what instantly re-established itself as one of the best F1 events of the year.

The track looks simple, but the gradients, kerbs and cambers make it a far tougher challenge than first appears. There are some good overtaking places too, so it's great for racing.

The only downside is that there were times during the weekend when the traffic was like Silverstone in the bad old days. But if you head to the Austrian GP, your patience will be rewarded.

A dual American delight
Sonoma NASCAR, June 27-28; IndyCar, August 29-30
Mark Glendenning, American correspondent (@m_glendenning)

Sonoma is spoilt. Not only is it one of the rare venues to host both NASCAR and IndyCar, but it's in an area ridiculously overloaded with distractions once the racing is over.

San Francisco, one of the liveliest cities in the US, is an easy drive over the Golden Gate Bridge to the south. The track is right at the gateway to northern California's wine country: Sonoma and Napa are on the doorstep.

If you prefer beer, you'll relish being in a stronghold for local breweries - AUTOSPORT is a fan of Lagunitas (Petaluma), Drake's (Oakland) and Bear Republic (Healdsburg). World-class restaurants? Try the French Laundry (Napa) or Chez Panisse (Berkeley), now rebuilt after a fire.

And if you're looking for a side trip, Tahoe, Yosemite and Big Sur are all within easy striking range.

Street racing in Portugal
WTCC Vila Real, July 10-12
Peter Mills, picture editor

Not content with taking on the Nordschleife this year, the adrenalin-seeking WTCC brigade will head to Vila Real in Portugal this July for a taste of old-school street racing.

Situated in the hills inland from Oporto, the original Vila Real was a 4.3-mile circuit inaugurated in 1931.

After Pedro Carvalho's Renault Clio tragically crashed into spectators in 1991, the circuit was truncated to 2.858 miles. The new route does away with the original track's level crossings and two narrow bridges (the second of which was over a ravine!), but should retain enough character to focus the attention of this year's WTCC crop.

Saddam Hussein was said to favour one of the region's prime exports, Mateus rose wine, whose labels feature the Mateus Palace situated close to the circuit. Given Vila Real's stop-start history (the last international race was in 1974), the curious and those who share a fondness for the former Middle-Eastern dictator's favourite tipple should consider a trek north of Douro this summer.

A Scottish knockout
Knockhill BTCC, August 22-23
Scott Mitchell, features editor (@scottmitchell89)

The appeal of touring car racing is how cut-and-thrust the action is, and no circuit showcases that better than Knockhill.

Most fans will be limited to where they can visit by their location, and that's understandable - before last year, as someone born and raised in Kent, I'd never been to the Scottish track. But if you can get to one BTCC event all year I cannot recommend the August trip north of the border highly enough.

Walking the outskirts of the track, which boasts some spectacular viewing points and, thanks to the terrain's undulations, a general view of at least three corners at a time, took me back to the days of karting.

You're not confined to one place to watch, and wherever you do spectate from you're guaranteed to see more than most other circuits. Chances are you'll also witness something spectacular, such is the nature of the track.

August is a popular holiday time but who says you can't have a mini-holiday in Scotland? The bumper TOCA support package means there is almost always something on track over the two days, and there's no better place to take in that action than Knockhill.

Free tickets and a home hero
Silverstone World Series by Renault, August 29-30
Glenn Freeman, autosport.com editor (@glenn_autosport)

The World Series by Renault free-ticket race weekend package returns to Silverstone this year for the first time since 2011. As you can see from the grandstands in the picture - British fans turn out in their droves so expect the home of the British Grand Prix to be packed to the rafters.

Headlined by the Formula 1 feeder series Formula Renault 3.5, the World Series weekends are typified by a busy on-track schedule of single-seater and tin-top racing, plus plenty of
demo runs (including F1), off-track entertainment for kids and completely open access to the paddock.

There's a good chance of having some British success to cheer, as Oliver Rowland enters 2015 as the title favourite.

Best of a Good(wood) bunch
Goodwood Revival, September 11-13
Henry Hope-Frost, Goodwood aficionado (@henryhopefrost)

Every September the South Downs reverberate to this retro racing recreation that since 1998 - the 50th anniversary of the Goodwood Motor Circuit's original opening - has wowed the period-costumed crowd.

Full-grid races for pre- and post-war grand prix cars, sports-racers, saloons, GTs and motorcycles offer thrilling combat for owners and many big-name international aces around what has always been one of Britain's quickest venues.

And despite the venue's airfield origins, the elevation changes and off-camber corners around the back provide endless viewing opportunities. For the non-diehard historic racing fans, the carefully choreographed sideshow is as theatrical as the on-track action. Displays, themed garages and parades add to the magic of this festival.

It's an advance-ticket event and always sells out so don't wait until August to decide you want to try it.

Saturday night fever
Spa Six Hours, September 18-20
Marcus Pye, the voice of club racing

If the bark of engines diffused by dense pine forests, pitch darkness pierced by sizzling orange brake discs, tracer lights and exhausts machine-gunning blue flame on the world's finest GP circuit doesn't stir your soul, there's no helping you.

It's not the hallowed 1000 Kilometres of yore on the majestic 8.7-mile road to Stavelot and back, but it's as close as it gets. Run annually since 1993, Roadbook's Spa Six Hours for pre-1966 GT and touring cars also favours the brave. Now a sprint race, not the early slog, a phalanx of Ford GT40s typically heads 100-car fields.

Racers flock like moths to the flame of continental Europe's favourite historic meeting, but Le Mans winners Jürgen Barth and Klaus Ludwig, and Indy 500 victor Kenny Brack haven't cracked its Saturday night thriller. The mastery of British specialists Simon Hadfield and Martin Stretton - with five and four wins respectively - sets the bar that high!

After 18 successive years I couldn't miss it.

Rally magic north of the border
Tour of Mull, (October 9-11)
David Evans, rallies editor (@davidevansrally)

Rally GB was too obvious. Unless you've undergone a horrific enthusiasm bypass, your trip to Dyfi and Deeside is a done deal. So this is the perfect warm-up for the final round of the World Rally Championship.

Warm-up may be taking it a tad far. This is the Inner Hebrides in October. It's Scotland's fourth largest island you're after: Mull.

I know, I know, you've heard it all before: magical island rally full of the most intensely entertaining, not to mention beguiling and bewitching roads. It's all true. And probably underplayed.

I'm fortunate enough to have been twice, but not for a while now. That'll be put right this year. The chance to stand in a graveyard in the dead of night and listen to Calum Duffy's Ford Escort Mk II being hustled through the darkness, watching brilliant lasers darting, dancing and arcing across the Scottish sky, turning black to white; night to day.

A squeal of brakes, the shrill cry of rubber being locked on dry asphalt and boom... Duffy's come. And gone. It's worth the trip just to see what can be done with the modern incarnation of a motor first made in 1974.

Then stay for the rest. And a wee dram. Or two.

Fevered up for real racing
Formula Ford Festival, October 24-25
Matt Beer, autosport.com deputy editor (@mattofautosport)

Motorsport's preference for season-long slow-burn championships make truly significant knockout formats a rarity. That's why I find end-of-season FF1600 trophy events an impossible addiction to break.

Raw, uncomplicated and raceable single-seaters wielded by huge casts of the year's top regional contenders, great names from the category's past plus hand-picked rising talents from abroad. It's an accessible human drama too - as drivers' families plus eliminated racers throng to the best vantage points for the final, every on-track incident has a visceral ripple through the crowd.

For the past decade the best place to experience this has been Silverstone's Walter Hayes Trophy, and it still thrives. But it's always been hard to shake the instinct that Brands is where an everything-on-the-line autumn FFord shootout should be, and the combination of recent format improvements, and removing the irksome distraction of a waning British FFord running to different rules, have made the Festival a must-see in its own right again.

F3's blue-riband bonanza
Macau Grand Prix, November 19-22
Jonathan Noble, Group F1 editor (@NobleF1)

Ask many of the Formula 1 drivers to name their favourite street circuit, and the answer is not the obvious Monaco. Instead, it's Macau, the scene of Formula 3's traditional end-of-season blue-riband event.

But the attraction of the Macau GP runs far deeper than just the hugely challenging street circuit - which has a unique contrast of a tricky, twisty mountain section and a long flat-out blast down to the famous Lisboa corner.

It's also about the high-pressure environment of an event where stars of the future bid to follow in the footsteps of former winners Ayrton Senna and Michael Schumacher.

Chuck in, too, cracking support races and the craziness of the bright lights of the world's biggest gambling hub, all just a one-hour ferry ride from Hong Kong.