Marc Beaumont returns to World Cup racing this year as part of the Madison Saracen set up after a year’s hiatus and it appears it was a frustrating year out for the two-time World Cup winner.

In his new film, he said: “I am a bike racer, and it pained me to sit on the side. I couldn’t even watch the World Cups last year when they were on, on the weekends, I’d just find something else to do that would get away from thinking of what other people were doing, racing, and that I felt I should have been doing.”

Watch Lourdes World Cup highlights

Marc Beaumont formerly raced for Atherton Factory Racing on GT bikes but took a year out last year to focus on journalism.

At the time the split seemed fairly amicable with team manager Dan Brown saying: “Slugger is a force to be reckoned with. He made an enormous impact on the team and I know that I speak for all of us when I say how much we’ll miss his mischievous presence in the pits and at training sessions as well as his serious contributions to team strategy and the huge support that he offered to the other riders.” Does this suggest otherwise?

Whatever the reason his year away seems to have done him no harm as he finished second in his first race at Sant Andreu de la Barca at the start of March, just 0.3 seconds down on Danny Hart.

Marc Beaumont’s film is due to be premiered tomorrow and you can expect him to be back in World Cup action in Lourdes on April 9-10.