Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/nofenders/zbjv/~3/Ahf9DOCAqbE/nbcsn-safety-blitzes-dakar-tv-show.html
Marcel Balsa Lorenzo Bandini Henry Banks Fabrizio Barbazza John Barber
Wednesday, January 30, 2013
Tata looking to set up shop in Romania - report
Tata is reportedly preparing to invest ?1 ($1.3) billion dollars into a former Nokia factory in Romania. It would eventually build trucks, buses and cars for the European market.
Duane Carter Eugenio Castellotti Johnny Cecotto Andrea de Cesaris Francois Cevert
'The point of no confidence is quite near'
 The wreckage of Jochen Rindt's car at Barcelona |
?Colin. I have been racing F1 for 5 years and I have made one mistake (I rammed Chris Amon in Clermont Ferrand) and I had one accident in Zandvoort due to gear selection failure otherwise I managed to stay out of trouble. This situation changed rapidly since I joined your team. ?Honestly your cars are so quick that we would still be competitive with a few extra pounds used to make the weakest parts stronger, on top of that I think you ought to spend some time checking what your different employes are doing, I sure the wishbones on the F2 car would have looked different. Please give my suggestions some thought, I can only drive a car in which I have some confidence, and I feel the point of no confidence is quite near.?A little more than a year later Rindt's Lotus suffered mechanical breakdown just before braking into one of the corners. He swerved violently to the left and crashed into a poorly-installed barrier, killing him instantly.
Source: http://blogs.espnf1.com/paperroundf1/archives/2010/09/the_point_of_no_confidence_is.php
Andrea Chiesa Ettore Chimeri Louis Chiron Joie Chitwood Bob Christie
Hamilton looks for long-term success at Mercedes
Lewis Hamilton's move to Mercedes is the biggest development in the Formula 1 driver market for three years.
Ahead of the 2010 season, Fernando Alonso moved to Ferrari, world champion Jenson Button switched from world champions Brawn (soon to become Mercedes) to McLaren and Michael Schumacher came out of retirement to replace Button.
Now, the man who most consider to be the fastest driver in the world has taken a huge gamble by switching from McLaren, who have the best car this year and have won five races this season alone, to Mercedes, who have won one race in three years.
To make way for Hamilton, Mercedes have ditched the most successful racing driver of all time.
Schumacher's return at the wheel of a Mercedes 'Silver Arrow' was billed as a dream for all concerned, but with one podium finish in three years the German marque have abandoned the project.
Hamilton leaves a team that has won more races in the last 30 years than anyone else. Photo: Getty
That the announcement was made just five days after the latest in a series of collisions in which Schumacher rammed into the back of another driver after misjudging his closing speed simply rubs salt into the wound.
Hamilton will be replaced at McLaren by one of F1's most promising rising stars - Sauber's Mexican driver Sergio Perez, who has taken three excellent podium finishes this year.
That's quite a shake-up, and it raises any number of fascinating questions, the first and most obvious of which is why Hamilton would leave a team that has won more races in the last 30 years than anyone else - even Ferrari - for one that has won one in the last three.
The explanation for that lies both at his new and current teams.
Mercedes sold the drive to Hamilton on the basis that they were in the best position to deliver him long-term success. In this, there are echoes of Schumacher's move to Ferrari in 1996.
Back then, the Italian team were in the doldrums, having won just one race the previous year. But Schumacher fancied a project, and saw potential. It took time, but by 1997 he was competing for the title, and from 2000 he won five in a row.
The architect of that success was Ross Brawn, then Ferrari's technical director and now Mercedes' team boss. Brawn is one of the most respected figures in F1, and Hamilton is banking on him being able to transform Mercedes in the same way as he did Ferrari.
Undoubtedly, Brawn will have made a convincing case to Hamilton; he is a very persuasive and credible man. It is also worth pointing out that Mercedes - in their former guise of Brawn - have won the world title more recently than McLaren. Button succeeded Hamilton as world champion in 2009.
Mercedes believe that the new regulations for 2014, when both the cars and engines will be significantly changed, will play into their hands.
They are devoting a lot of resources towards that year, and are optimistic they will be in good shape - just as Brawn were, in fact, when the last big rule change happened for 2009.
And Mercedes have a technical team that, on paper, is immensely strong. In Bob Bell, Aldo Costa and Geoff Willis, they have three men who have been technical directors in their own right at other top teams all working under Brawn.
Part of this argument is predicated on the fact that new engine regulations always favour teams run or directly supported by engine manufacturers, on the basis that they are best placed to benefit from developments, and to integrate the car with the engine.
But this is where that argument falls down a little - McLaren may be a mere 'customer' of Mercedes for the first time next year, but they are still going to be using Mercedes engines in 2014, and on the basis of parity of performance.
The love affair with McLaren, who took him on as a 13-year-old karting prodigy, ended some time ago.
Since 2010, Hamilton has been complaining from time to time about the McLaren's lack of aerodynamic downforce compared to the best car of the time.
Through 2009-11, he grew increasingly frustrated at his team's apparent inability to challenge Red Bull. Hamilton is well aware of how good he is, and it hurt to watch Sebastian Vettel win two titles on the trot and not be able to challenge him.
That explains his ill-advised - and dangerously public - approach to Red Bull team boss Christian Horner at the 2011 Canadian Grand Prix.
This year, McLaren started the season with the fastest car for the first time since, arguably, 2005. But again they could not get out of their own way.
Pit-stop blunders affected Hamilton's races in Malaysia and China early in the season, and then a terrible mistake in not putting enough fuel in Hamilton's car in qualifying in Spain turned an almost certain win into a battle for minor points.
These errors badly affected his title charge and in early summer his management started approaching other teams.
His favoured choice was almost certainly Red Bull, but they weren't interested. They also approached Ferrari, where Alonso vetoed Hamilton. That left Mercedes.
It is ironic that his decision to move teams has been announced on the back of four races that McLaren have dominated.
Meanwhile, Hamilton's relationship with McLaren Group chairman Ron Dennis, the man who signed him up and who promoted him to the F1 team in 2007, has collapsed.
It was noticeable that after Hamilton's win in Italy earlier this month Dennis stood, arms-folded and stoney-faced, beneath the podium, not applauding once. Nor did Dennis don one of McLaren's 'rocket-red' victory T-shirts, or join in the champagne celebrations with the team once Hamilton had completed his media duties.
In Singapore last weekend, it seemed that McLaren still believed they had a chance of keeping Hamilton; at least that was the impression from talking to the team.
But did Dennis already know in Monza of Hamilton's decision to defect? Was Hamilton's sombre mood after that win a reflection of his wondering whether he had made the right decision?
Was Hamilton's ill-advised decision to post a picture of confidential McLaren telemetry on the social networking site Twitter on the morning of the Belgian Grand Prix, the weekend before Italy, the action of a man who had had enough and didn't care any more because he knew he was leaving?
When was the Mercedes deal actually finally signed?
Was it done before BBC Sport broke the story of it being imminent in the week leading up to the Italian race?
Or was it not inked, finally, until this week, on the basis that only now has the Mercedes board committed to new commercial terms with F1 boss Bernie Ecclestone?
In which case, was the gearbox failure that cost Hamilton a certain victory in Singapore, and effectively extinguished his title hopes for good, the straw that broke the camel's back?
In short, was Hamilton's decision based on cold, hard logic, rooted primarily in performance, in making more money, or founded on emotion as much as calculation. Or was it a combination of all those factors?
All these questions will be answered in time. Whatever led to Hamilton's decision, it is fair to say that it is an enormous gamble, one on which the next phase of his career hangs.
Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/andrewbenson/2012/09/hamilton_looks_for_long-term_s.html
Alberto Crespo Antonio Creus Larry Crockett Tony Crook Art Cross
Peugeot 208 GTi priced from 18,895 GBP
The Peugeot 208 GTi will be available on order in UK this March at a starting price of 18,895 GBP. 
Alberto Ascari Peter Ashdown Ian Ashley Gerry Ashmore Bill Aston
Lexus trademarks 'RC F' moniker
Toyota has recently filed a trademark in the United States and Europe for the "RC F" nameplate. 
Source: http://feeds.worldcarfans.com/~r/worldcarfans/Jxfz/~3/5by1BsEU3Ds/lexus-trademarks-rc-f-moniker
Mauro Baldi Bobby Ball Marcel Balsa Lorenzo Bandini Henry Banks
Tuesday, January 29, 2013
Ross Brawn: ?I?ve talked to Paddy, we know the situation??
Ross Brawn made it clear today that he intends to stay on at Mercedes GP for the time being, and confirmed that he is firmly in charge ? but at the same time admitted that he has yet to make … Continue reading 
Source: http://adamcooperf1.com/2013/01/24/ross-brawn-ive-talked-to-paddy-we-know-the-situation/
Franco Comotti George Connor George Constantine John Cordts David Coulthard
Hamilton glory cannot hide the hurt
Lewis Hamilton’s victory in the Italian Grand Prix was his second in three races and McLaren’s third in a row, confirming their position as the form team in Formula 1.
They have won nearly twice as many races as any other team this season – their five compare with the three of Ferrari and Red Bull. No-one else has won more than one.
Just as worryingly for their rivals, the last two victories – Hamilton’s on Sunday and Jenson Button’s in Belgium seven days previously – were utterly dominant.
The retirement of Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel with his second alternator failure in a race this season also helped Hamilton move into second place in the championship.
Lewis Hamilton (centre) celebrates winning the Italian GP on the podium with Sergio Perez (left) and Fernando Alonso (right). Photo: Getty
The 27-year-old may be 37 points behind Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso, but there are 175 still available in the remaining seven races.
Alonso is, by common consent, the stand-out driver of 2012, but Hamilton has also driven a superb season and has almost certainly been second best.
Had it not been for a number of operational problems early in the championship, he may well be leading the championship. Even as it is, he has every chance of making a fight of it to the end of the season.
For a man in such a position, after a strong weekend, Hamilton was in a subdued mood after the race, as indeed he was throughout the four days in Monza.
He insisted that the BBC Sport story in which Eddie Jordan said that Hamilton was on the verge of leaving McLaren and signing for Mercedes had not affected him, but it did not look that way.
Whatever was prompting him to keep his answers short and to the point in his news conferences and television interviews certainly did not affect his driving.
He was in excellent form throughout the three days, tussling with Alonso for the honour of being fastest man at Monza.
And once the Spaniard was put out of the reckoning for victory with a rear anti-roll bar problem that left him in 10th place on the grid, Hamilton always looked odds-on for victory.
His task was made easier when Ferrari’s Felipe Massa beat Button away from the grid and held on to second place, with the McLaren never really hustling as it might have been expected to do, until he made his pit stop on lap 19. By then, Hamilton had the race won.
There was no evidence Button would have been able to challenge his team-mate had he got away in second place.
Button did close a little a few laps after their pit stops, but it was clear Hamilton was measuring his pace, and he let Button get no closer than seven seconds before holding him there until the second McLaren retired with a fuel system problem.
It was a mature, controlled drive, just as were his victories in Canada and Hungary. Alonso, who rates him as his toughest rival, will take the threat from him in the championship very seriously.
All in all, it was a tense weekend at McLaren. The Hamilton/Mercedes story made it a difficult weekend for the team and the relationship between their two drivers is frosty, presumably following Hamilton’s decision to post a picture of confidential team telemetry on the social networking site Twitter on the morning of the Belgian Grand Prix.
Button said he was “surprised and disappointed” by his team-mate’s actions, for which read “seriously hacked off”.
“I didn’t concentrate on it too much,” Button said on his arrival at Monza. “I thought it was important to say how I felt. It’s very easy not to say anything; also if you say something you can clear it up quicker. That was the last race. We’ve moved on from that.”
Perhaps, but the body language between the two men was palpably cool throughout the weekend, and they were not troubling to hide it, even in public arenas such as the restaurant at their hotel.
One night, sitting at adjacent tables, they did not even look at or acknowledge each other, let alone exchange a word.
McLaren insiders were relaxed about the situation, though. They like their drivers to race and a bit of edge focuses their minds, one senior figure pointed out.
Hamilton admitted his victory would have been a lot harder had Alonso qualified on the front row, as he looked certain to do before his problem in qualifying.
As it was, Alonso was forced to salvage what he could from 10th on the grid and, typically, he made the most of the situation.
An aggressive and clinical first few laps go him into fifth place by lap seven, but there his progress halted against the back of Sebastian Vettel’s Red Bull.
The world champion was robust in his defence, and Alonso was not able to pass before they made their pit stops together on lap 20.
Ferrari’s slick pit work, consistently among the best this season, almost got him out ahead of Vettel, but the Red Bull edged ahead, forcing Alonso to get past on the track.
When he went for the big move, around the outside of Curva Grande at 180mph on lap 26, Vettel unceremoniously barged him on to the grass, the Ferrari bucking scarily as Alonso wrestled for control.
Understandably, he was furious, although he kept his counsel after the race. It was a sure-fire penalty, in the context of a clarification on acceptable driving which was issued verbally to the drivers at the Spanish Grand Prix and then in written form in Canada.
The assumption was that Vettel was getting Alonso back for a similar situation, with roles reversed, in last year’s Italian Grand Prix. That one, in which Vettel passed Alonso with two wheels on the grass, has rankled with the German ever since.
He has brought it up at every opportunity, and this looked very much like revenge.
The difference was that, then, Alonso left Vettel just enough room, and Vettel took to the grass when he could – just – have stayed on the track. This time, Vettel left no room, and his behaviour was clearly unacceptable.
Vettel has the arrogance and self-belief that is required of all great drivers but there is also sometimes a sense of entitlement about him which is less than appealing.
He got this one wrong, and one hopes that when he watches a video of the incident, he will recognise that himself.
Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/andrewbenson/2012/09/lewis_hamiltons_victory_in_the.html
Dave Charlton Pedro Matos Chaves Bill Cheesbourg Eddie Cheever Andrea Chiesa
VINTAGE: Batmobile Sale Broke Record
The Barrett-Jackson auction of the original ?Batman? TV car is verified as the highest-ever price for a TV or movie vehicle.
Source: http://automotive.speedtv.com/article/vintage-batmobile-sale-broke-record/
Paul Belmondo Tom Belso JeanPierre Beltoise Olivier Beretta Allen Berg
Raikkonen in rude health
Kimi Raikkonen already had a bottle of beer in his hand by the time he joined his Lotus team for the now-traditional group photo following a grand prix victory.
Knowing Raikkonen's reputation, it will almost certainly not have been the last drink that passed his lips in Abu Dhabi on Sunday night as he celebrated his first win since returning to Formula 1 this year after two years in rallying.
"For sure we're going to have a good party today," the sport's most famous hedonist said on he podium, "and hopefully tomorrow, when we are feeling bad after a long night, we will remember how we feel."
How long will you celebrate for, he was asked.
"I have almost two weeks," he said. "As long as I manage to get myself to the next race I think the team is happy. I try to get home at some point."
The party is well deserved. Raikkonen's comeback year has had its ups and downs, but a win has looked a probability since the start of the season, and in many ways the big surprise has been that it has taken so long.
Raikkonen has been remarkably strong and consistent in races this season, but until Abu Dhabi his best chances of victory had been squandered by starting too far down the grid.
Raikkonen has now taken 37% of his career victories after starting from outside the top three on the grid. Photo: Getty
He is the first to admit that he has made too many mistakes in qualifying. Indeed, for the first half of the season he was generally being out-paced over one lap on Saturdays by his novice team-mate Romain Grosjean.
But in the second half of the season his qualifying pace has edged forward, the mistakes have dried up, and this weekend everything came together to produce the result the team and he undoubtedly deserve.
Out of the car, Raikkonen is about as uncommunicative as they come. He simply refuses to engage in the media game. That can be frustrating for journalists who are searching for insight from an undoubtedly great driver, but still there is no mystery about his true character.
The radio messages that caused such amusement during the race sum him up.
His poor race engineer was only doing his job when he informed him of the gap to Fernando Alonso's Ferrari behind him, and some may find it rude that Raikkonen would respond by asking him to "leave me alone, I know what I'm doing".
But that is Raikkonen all over. He's a no-nonsense character, and he just wants things the way he wants them. And if he is not comfortable in the spotlight, he was born to be in a Formula 1 car at the front of a grand prix.
"Kimi is a man of few words but he's all about racing," McLaren driver Jenson Button said, summing up the Finn's unique appeal.
"It's good to see him have a good race here and collect the victory. He does deserve it. He is back for the racing. That's what he loves and it's good to see that."
For all his impressive performance, Raikkonen owed his win to Lewis Hamilton's wretched fortune at McLaren.
Yet another failure - this one in a fuel pump on the McLaren's Mercedes engine - cost Hamilton another victory. It's the second time it has happened in five races and it is the story of his season.
Hamilton said on Sunday that he had "been at my best this year" and so it has looked, but he also made a pointed reference to McLaren's myriad problems throughout the season: "We have not done a good enough job to win this championship."
For the men who can win it, it was a weekend of wildly fluctuating fortunes.
Following Sebastian Vettel's exclusion from qualifying because not enough fuel had been put in his Red Bull to provide the requisite one-litre sample, it appeared that Alonso had a golden opportunity to close down some of the advantage the German had eked out with his four consecutive wins through Singapore, Japan, Korea and India.
But after a wildly topsy-turvy race and an impressive drive by Vettel, the German joined his Spanish rival on the podium.
All three podium finishers gave an object lesson in racing to the many drivers who crash-banged into each other behind them, including each of their team-mates, and while Vettel's drive quite rightly stood out, so too was a little luck involved.
Vettel damaged his front wing against Bruno Senna's Williams on the first lap, but was able to continue and overtake the rabbits at the back of the field.
Then, not for the first time in his career, he made a mistake behind the safety car, misjudging the pace of Daniel Ricciardo's Toro Rosso as the Australian warmed his brakes, veering to avoid him, and finishing off the front wing against a marker board.
The mistake forced Red Bull to pit Vettel when they were not going to and the fresh tyres he fitted at the stop meant he had a grip advantage over the drivers he now had to pass.
Again, he sliced rapidly through the backmarkers - this time without incident - so that he was up to seventh by the time the pit-stop period started for those in front of him.
By the time the leaders had all stopped, Vettel was in second place, and suddenly it looked like he might have a chance of pulling off a sensational victory.
Raikkonen's Lotus team, for one, thought Vettel would not be stopping again, but Red Bull were concerned enough about tyre wear to want to play safe, and the 20 seconds he lost in his second pit stop were then wiped out by another safety car.
Fourth at the re-start, the fastest car in the field and on fresher tyres than Raikkonen, Alonso and Button ahead of him, it again looked like he might win.
In the end, though, Button's clever defence kept him behind long enough to ensure that although he could pass the McLaren, third was as far as he was going to go.
BBC F1 chief analyst Eddie Jordan said Vettel's ability to salvage a podium finish from a pit-lane start must feel like a "dagger in the heart for Ferrari" but if Alonso was disappointed you would not want to play poker with him.
He talked about his pride at finishing second in a race Ferrari had expected to deliver a fifth or sixth place - and as Red Bull team boss Christian Horner pointed out, Alonso celebrated on the podium as if he had won the race.
For a while now, Alonso has been saying Red Bull's winning run would end, that eventually they would have some bad luck.
Well, in Abu Dhabi they had it, and still Alonso could gain only three points on Vettel, and it was noticeable that the tone of his remarks after the race shifted slightly.
In India two weeks ago, he said he was still "100% confident" of winning the title. After Abu Dhabi, though, he did not repeat that remark.
"Without the problem for Sebastian we were thinking we would exit Abu Dhabi with 20 points deficit or something and we are 10 (behind)," Alonso said. "In the end it was a good weekend for us.
"They will have the fastest car in the last two races. There is no magic part that will come for Austin or Brazil. But as I said a couple of races ago, they have the fastest car, we have the best team. So we see who wins."
Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/andrewbenson/2012/11/post_abu_dhabi.html
Christijan Albers Michele Alboreto Jean Alesi Jaime Alguersuari Philippe Alliot
2014 Peugeot 308 spied again
The 2014 Peugeot 308 has been spied once again, this time without the black camouflage at the front. 
Source: http://feeds.worldcarfans.com/~r/worldcarfans/Jxfz/~3/05tLpEjb_5I/2014-peugeot-308-spied-again
Ronnie Bucknum Ivor Bueb Sebastien Buemi Luiz Bueno Ian Burgess
Tesla Model S Performance vs Dodge Viper SRT10 drag race [video]
The Tesla Model S Performance was able to outrun a Dodge Viper SRT10 in a drag race. It happened at Palm Beach International Raceway last weekend. 
Chuck Arnold Rene Arnoux Peter Arundell Alberto Ascari Peter Ashdown
Monday, January 28, 2013
The value of human interest stories
Formula 1 does a decent job selling itself around the world. The racing is good, even if the tickets are expensive and the sport does provide a really unique platform for global advertisers. Having said that, Formula 1 could do better than does in terms of promotion because there is, in reality, no central marketing [...]
Source: http://joesaward.wordpress.com/2013/01/28/the-value-of-human-interest-stories/
Tommy Byrne Giulio Cabianca Phil Cade Alex Caffi John CampbellJones
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