Just days from the start of a brand new F1 season, it has become unquestionably clear that the two of us are not remotely ready for race one. Wildly unprepared and massively behind schedule, I cannot foresee any way we could competently cover the opening Grand Prix. It's time to take a break.

I would desperately love to blame the absurd length of a 20 event calendar, the crazy cost of watching motorsport in the modern age, or the dreadful direction F1 has taken lately for this second Sidepodcast hiatus, but this time it is solely about us.

Back in 2010 we successfully sat out a chunk of the season, and it did us the world of good. This year we're going to repeat that process, grabbing a bit more downtime than F1's meagre off-season normally allows.

We will of course still be following all the racing action, and hopefully can continue to publish any guest posts or feature articles that might find their way to us. If Joe is happy to keep recording podcasts, I'll do my best to produce those too. Beyond that though, the site will probably be quite quiet.

It is hard to say exactly when we'll be fully up to speed again, but worst case scenario it'll be late in 2015. In the meantime be sure to enjoy the racing, early indications suggest it'll be a brilliant one.