Montag, 28. Februar 2011
Mansory Cormeum based on Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG
Tuner wraps the Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG in a new carbon shell that drops 90 kg in weight from the raging sports coupe.German dealer tunes the Infiniti M30d S
Infiniti dealer in Hamburg ups the attraction quotient on the M30d S sedan model by providing power boosting as well as optics and a new set of wheels.Video: SHIFT 2 Unleashed - Authenticity and realism
A few days ago we presented a Shift 2 Unleashed video staring the new Pagani Huayra. Now is time for another video, this time revealing the authenticity and the realism in the new racing video.
Official statement says that top racecar drivers, including Tommy Milner, Edward Sandstrom and drift champion Vaughn Gittin Jr. all spent a great deal of time with the team at Slightly Mad Studios, helping make SHIFT 2 Unleashed the most realistic racing game you’ll ever play. With the help of the new "helmet cam" you will get inside the heads of the best racecar drivers, but also of the world’s best drifters. All this moves were made in order to make from the NFS Shift 2 the most realistic racing game on the market.
You will be able to take a first spin on March 29.
Video: SHIFT 2 Unleashed - Authenticity and realism originally appeared on topspeed.com on Sunday, 27 February 2011 12:00 EST.
Jacques Swaters Bob Sweikert Toranosuke Takagi Noritake Takahara
Jeff Gordon wins at Phoenix to snap 66-race drought
Jeff Gordon Ends Drought Jeff Gordon snaps 66-race winless streak by taking the Subway Fresh Fit 500 at PhoenixJeff Gordon Ends Drought AVONDALE, Ariz. -- Just before peeling off what he called a lame burnout near the finish line, Jeff Gordon screamed into his radio, the emotion pouring out with his voice. [+] Enlarge Jared C. Related posts:- Jeff Gordon wins the NASCAR Sprint Cup race at Phoenix International Raceway Jeff Gordon Ends Drought Jeff Gordon snaps 66-race winless...
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Hans Joachim Stuck Otto Stuppacher Danny Sullivan Marc Surer
Sonntag, 27. Februar 2011
Discussions over
Luigi Taramazzo Gabriele Tarquini Piero Taruffi Dennis Taylor
Video: NASCAR robots featured in latest Transformers ad
You might have wondered exactly why the latest Transformers trailer was aired during the Daytona 500. Well, apart from the NASCAR race being one of the most watched sporting events in the US, the new trailer was aptly aired during the race because of a partnership between the movie and the racing series.
If you had no idea before, then let this new trailer be your introduction to three new robots that will be featured in the third installment of the blockbuster movie franchise: they?re Chevrolet Impalas dressed up as NASCAR race cars that also happen to be Transformers.
Until now, no names or affiliations ? word has it that they?re one of the good guys ? have been given for these three racing robots, but whatever their allegiances are, it?s still pretty cool to see some US-bred NASCAR racers in the movie.
The movie hits theaters on July 1st, 2011, making it another four-month wait for ardent fans of the franchise. And if you?re fans of NASCAR like we are, there?s another reason ? or three ? to anxiously wait for the movie?s release. Until then, check out the new Transformers trailer and keep a sharp eye out for those bad-ass NASCAR Transformers.
Video: NASCAR robots featured in latest Transformers ad originally appeared on topspeed.com on Saturday, 26 February 2011 06:00 EST.
Champions Red Bull the centre of attention
Valencia
On a cold January morning in Valencia it was hard for Red Bull to bask in their glories of last season's double championship success as they unveiled their 2011 challenger.
World champion Sebastian Vettel wisely wore a woolly hat and a blond beard as he and team-mate Mark Webber shiveringly unsheathed the RB7.
There was even an early attempt to burst Red Bull's bubble when a plucky journalist asked in the team's first media conference of the new season, "Have you thought that this car could be complete junk?"
Webber stared into the middle distance, designer Adrian Newey fashioned a face of indifference and it was left to Vettel to answer in shock, "No!"
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By the end of the first day, Vettel had emphatically answered the question on the track by holding sway at the top of the timesheets.
The world champion was more than 0.7 seconds ahead of the next 2011 car, which happened to belong to the man he beat to the 2010 crown, Ferrari's Fernando Alonso.
Times don't count for much on the first day of winter testing as the teams are furiously tinkering with the cars, running with unknown amounts of fuel on board and learning how to adapt to the Pirelli tyres, which will be used instead of Bridgestone this season.
But Vettel's marker was undeniably a statement of intent - Red Bull are out to defend both titles.
"It's a good sign," Vettel commented after his first day back in the cockpit. "Generally it's better to be on top of the ranking than being at the other end.
"What we achieved [in 2010] made us all very proud and no-one can take it away from us.
"But we have to develop on how good we were last year or the others will pass us. We have to stay focused, keep learning and keep trying to get better. If we just have the same approach as last year then we won't move forward."
Red Bull were cagey about the specific design changes and upgrades to the 2011 car.
Perhaps you cannot blame them when some of the other teams were hovering amid the media throng at the Red Bull launch trying to get a glimpse of Newey's latest creation. One rival team representative was even spotted unsubtly snapping away with a long-range zoom lens.
Red Bull simply say that the car is an evolution of its 2010 championship-winning vehicle and that a lot of the changes are "beneath the skin".
The principal tasks for all teams is in incorporating 2011's regulation changes which include the addition of a movable rear wing to aid overtaking, the return of 2009's Kers energy recovery and power boost system and the removal of the double diffuser, as well as gaining an understanding of the new Pirelli tyres.
Unlike last season, when they skipped the first test to spend more time honing the car at their Milton Keynes factory, Red Bull arrived at the opening test determined to take full advantage of the 15 days of testing before the first race of the season next month.
"We felt that the car was ready to be released," explained Newey. "It's always a balance of research time versus development time in terms of performance and reliability. I was keen to get the car out for the first test.
"It's difficult to design the car for the Pirelli tyres. Packaging for Kers is a challenge and no doubt McLaren, Ferrari and Mercedes will have Kers and will be competitive and so for no other reason we need to get it to work for performance off the line.
"In terms of performance we are all struggling to recover the downforce we lost through the double diffuser.
"It is a period of nervousness for us but also a period of excitement."
While Newey grapples with the nuances of designing another peerless car, team boss Christian Horner is tasked with avoiding a repeat of the tensions within his team that threatened to derail last season's championships.
Friction between Vettel and Webber memorably spilled over onto the track at the Turkish Grand Prix when Vettel crashed out in an attempt to pass his team-mate for the lead.
"They'll push each other hard but I don't think they'll push each other too hard as they did in Istanbul," Horner commented.
"They have number one and number two on their cars but that is in many ways irrelevant. We give both drivers equal priority and that's the way we will treat them in 2011."
In their first appearance ahead of the new season, Red Bull presented a united front as a team hungry for more success. With the world champion leading the field, the fastest car on the track and the largest motorhome in the paddock, they already look every inch like being the team to beat when racing resumes next month in Bahrain.
Samstag, 26. Februar 2011
F1 gurus lead a revolution in car design
Formula 1 is undergoing a quiet revolution.
In two years' time, the cars that line up on the grid for the start of the 2013 season will be vastly different from those that raced in 2010.
Governing body the FIA has already announced that the current 2.4-litre normally aspirated V8 engines will be replaced by 1.6-litre turbocharged versions with integrated energy recovery systems.
Now, BBC Sport can reveal that, driven by this big change to the engine regulations, the cars will also undergo their own huge revisions.
To the casual observer, they will still look like F1 cars and, importantly, will still go like them. But within the limitations of an open-cockpit, single-seater racing car with exposed wheels, they will be very different from current machines.
Gone will be the huge, snowplough front wings that have been required since the last major change of rules. Gone will be the high, chunky rear wings. Gone, too, will be the high-revving shriek of the engines.
In their place will be a car with much smaller front and rear wings and the much flatter, lower-pitched sound of a lower-revving turbo.
And critically - although largely invisible - there will be a shaped underfloor, replacing the flat bottoms that have been on F1 cars since 1983.
The 1982 Ferrari - a 126C2 - also possessed a small front wing
These external changes reflect a major change in the philosophy behind the cars and, as with the turbo engines, it is a case of back to the future. As the 1980s dominate the latest High Street fashions, so F1 is borrowing from technologies last seen then and updating them for the 21st century.
F1 last saw turbo engines in 1988. The last time cars had shaped underbodies was 1982. Those were the days of 'ground effect', when designers created huge amounts of aerodynamic downforce - and high cornering speeds - by accelerating the air under the car through the use of curved underfloors to create a 'venturi effect'. This was enhanced by the use of 'skirts', which sealed the underbody and prevented air leaking out of the sides.
We are not talking about a return to those days but the general principle is the same. Just as the cars in the 1979-82 period had small front and rear wings, so will the cars of 2013 and beyond.
The difference now is that whereas in the late 1970s and early '80s aerodynamics in F1 cars were still relatively in their infancy and designers were simply chasing as much as they could, now they are highly refined. And the men behind the proposed new rules are using the underfloor of the car to create efficient - but strictly limited - downforce.
The FIA recognised that if it was to make such a major change to the cars, it needed to be done as effectively and credibly as possible. So to help draw up the new rules they asked two of the most respected and experienced designers they could find - Patrick Head and Rory Byrne.
Between them, Head, the engineering director of Williams, and Byrne, now retired but formerly of Benetton and Ferrari, have won a total of 17 constructors' titles and 15 drivers' titles. They were first approached by FIA president Jean Todt in March 2010.
Among the provisos Head and Byrne were given were: a) at the very least, make sure the changes did not make overtaking any harder than it already is; and b) make the cars a bit harder to drive - the target being for a driver to be able to be on full throttle for only about 50% of the lap, as opposed to the current average of 70%.
The new regulations are being fine-tuned by FIA race director Charlie Whiting this week before being sent to the 12 F1 teams for analysis. In the new year, they will be critiqued at the sport's Technical Working Group, a group of leading engineers who effectively define the technical rules.
Head says "sure as hell there'll be some small changes" there. The basic philosophy, though, is expected to stay the same, while Head says the shaped underfloor is "inevitable".
"It all starts with the fact that we are only going to have roughly 65% of the amount of fuel, and a (limited) fuel flow rate," he explains. "When you're very limited on fuel, it's very clear you've got to reduce drag enormously. OK, the tyres are a very high proportion of the drag but we decided not to put tiny skinny tyres on it because it's still required to go around corners quickly.
"So the next thing you turn to is the massive rear wing we're running at the moment and as soon as you replace that with a much smaller one, it's 'Oh, we've lost all our downforce, so what can we do?' So inevitably you end up with a shaped underside."
This idea has been around for a long time - as long ago as 1998, when another working group, led by the late Dr Harvey Postlethwaite, also suggested reducing the sizes of front and rear wings and re-introducing shaped underfloors. The idea was canned by then FIA president Max Mosley.
Back then, the motivating factor was to improve the racing. In theory, cars designed this way can follow each other more closely than modern F1 cars.
Currently, drivers experience a severe lack of grip when they get to within about a second of a car in front because the airflow to their cars, particularly over the critical front wing, is badly disturbed.
In theory, with smaller wings and a greater proportion of the total downforce coming from under the car, there is less disturbance in the wake of the car in front, so a following car loses less aerodynamic downforce. It therefore retains more grip, allowing drivers to get closer to the car they want to overtake, making passing easier.
Under these new rules, any benefit to the racing will be secondary. The first goal is improving the cars' efficiency.
But it's just possible that, in chasing a goal that is all about keeping F1 in step with a world of diminishing fossil fuels, the effect will be to make overtaking easier.
Chastened by years of rule changes aimed at making cars more raceable that made no discernible difference, those involved are cagey about that for now. But one senior figure will at least admit the thought is on their minds.
"One of the fundamental parts of this," he said, "was that it wouldn't make it worse. But we do believe that if you can ensure there's less disturbance in the wake, that's good."
Trevor Bayne is the Justin Bieber of NASCAR
Hero Of Knoxville Trevor Bayne has become the toast of his hometown of Knoxville, Tenn., so what's next for the 20-year-old winner of the Daytona 500? The sky may be the limit Related posts:- Trevor Bayne gave the Wood Brothers a win; old Ford family ties first gave them hope NASCAR Soundtracks: Daytona 500 Trevor Bayne lives a dream...
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Abu Dhabi GP prepared to twin with Bahrain
Red Bull stars on level playing field
Mark Webber and Sebastian Vettel will be on a level playing field for the 2011 Formula One season, the Australian driver believes.
Webber felt like he was being treated as a 'second driver' last season by Red Bull as his German team-mate appeared to be given preference when it came to car parts and race tactics.
However, Webber has insisted that he ...
Freitag, 25. Februar 2011
F1: Michael ?impressed? by Maldonado
Michael 'impressed' by Maldonado By Pablo Elizalde and Simon Strang Thursday, February 24th 2011, 12:44 GMT Williams technical director Sam Michael says he has been impressed with the performance of Pastor Maldonado so far. "The job that he's done in the short testing that we've had so far has been very good," said Michael during the unveiling of Williams's final colour scheme. Related posts:- F1: Maldonado to demo Williams in Caracas Maldonado to demo Williams in Caracas By Jonathan Noble Thursday,...
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Forbes ranks Hendrick top value in NASCAR
NEW YORK -- Forbes' annual rankings show that Hendrick Motorsports is the most valuable team in NASCAR for the third consecutive year.Forbes' report released Wednesday showed NASCAR's top team was worth $350 million. Related posts:- Hendrick Motorsports valued as top NASCAR team for second straight year by Forbes NEW YORK -- Forbes' annual rankings show that Hendrick Motorsports...
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Karthikeyan Makes Surprise F1 Return With HRT
Justin Wilson Vic Wilson Joachim Winkelhock Manfred Winkelhock
Gumpert Tornante teased again?
A mysterious new image has surfaced online which appears to show the Gumpert Tornante by Touring.Donnerstag, 24. Februar 2011
Lexus LFA with Nürburgring Package world premiere in Geneva, finally
Lexus first showed us the LFA Nürburgring Package almost one year ago, but with production not getting under way until this past December, Lexus had nothing to show - until now.Champions Red Bull the centre of attention
Valencia
On a cold January morning in Valencia it was hard for Red Bull to bask in their glories of last season's double championship success as they unveiled their 2011 challenger.
World champion Sebastian Vettel wisely wore a woolly hat and a blond beard as he and team-mate Mark Webber shiveringly unsheathed the RB7.
There was even an early attempt to burst Red Bull's bubble when a plucky journalist asked in the team's first media conference of the new season, "Have you thought that this car could be complete junk?"
Webber stared into the middle distance, designer Adrian Newey fashioned a face of indifference and it was left to Vettel to answer in shock, "No!"
In order to see this content you need to have both Javascript enabled and Flash Installed. Visit BBC Webwise for full instructions. If you're reading via RSS, you'll need to visit the blog to access this content.
By the end of the first day, Vettel had emphatically answered the question on the track by holding sway at the top of the timesheets.
The world champion was more than 0.7 seconds ahead of the next 2011 car, which happened to belong to the man he beat to the 2010 crown, Ferrari's Fernando Alonso.
Times don't count for much on the first day of winter testing as the teams are furiously tinkering with the cars, running with unknown amounts of fuel on board and learning how to adapt to the Pirelli tyres, which will be used instead of Bridgestone this season.
But Vettel's marker was undeniably a statement of intent - Red Bull are out to defend both titles.
"It's a good sign," Vettel commented after his first day back in the cockpit. "Generally it's better to be on top of the ranking than being at the other end.
"What we achieved [in 2010] made us all very proud and no-one can take it away from us.
"But we have to develop on how good we were last year or the others will pass us. We have to stay focused, keep learning and keep trying to get better. If we just have the same approach as last year then we won't move forward."
Red Bull were cagey about the specific design changes and upgrades to the 2011 car.
Perhaps you cannot blame them when some of the other teams were hovering amid the media throng at the Red Bull launch trying to get a glimpse of Newey's latest creation. One rival team representative was even spotted unsubtly snapping away with a long-range zoom lens.
Red Bull simply say that the car is an evolution of its 2010 championship-winning vehicle and that a lot of the changes are "beneath the skin".
The principal tasks for all teams is in incorporating 2011's regulation changes which include the addition of a movable rear wing to aid overtaking, the return of 2009's Kers energy recovery and power boost system and the removal of the double diffuser, as well as gaining an understanding of the new Pirelli tyres.
Unlike last season, when they skipped the first test to spend more time honing the car at their Milton Keynes factory, Red Bull arrived at the opening test determined to take full advantage of the 15 days of testing before the first race of the season next month.
"We felt that the car was ready to be released," explained Newey. "It's always a balance of research time versus development time in terms of performance and reliability. I was keen to get the car out for the first test.
"It's difficult to design the car for the Pirelli tyres. Packaging for Kers is a challenge and no doubt McLaren, Ferrari and Mercedes will have Kers and will be competitive and so for no other reason we need to get it to work for performance off the line.
"In terms of performance we are all struggling to recover the downforce we lost through the double diffuser.
"It is a period of nervousness for us but also a period of excitement."
While Newey grapples with the nuances of designing another peerless car, team boss Christian Horner is tasked with avoiding a repeat of the tensions within his team that threatened to derail last season's championships.
Friction between Vettel and Webber memorably spilled over onto the track at the Turkish Grand Prix when Vettel crashed out in an attempt to pass his team-mate for the lead.
"They'll push each other hard but I don't think they'll push each other too hard as they did in Istanbul," Horner commented.
"They have number one and number two on their cars but that is in many ways irrelevant. We give both drivers equal priority and that's the way we will treat them in 2011."
In their first appearance ahead of the new season, Red Bull presented a united front as a team hungry for more success. With the world champion leading the field, the fastest car on the track and the largest motorhome in the paddock, they already look every inch like being the team to beat when racing resumes next month in Bahrain.
Freitag, 4. Februar 2011
Journalists shocked at Korea award
 Scarecrows adorn the entrance to a barren Korean International Circuit |
Joachim Winkelhock Manfred Winkelhock Markus Winkelhock Reine Wisell
Red Bull stars on level playing field
Mark Webber and Sebastian Vettel will be on a level playing field for the 2011 Formula One season, the Australian driver believes.
Webber felt like he was being treated as a 'second driver' last season by Red Bull as his German team-mate appeared to be given preference when it came to car parts and race tactics.
However, Webber has insisted that he will be treated equally with the defending world champion ...
Volkswagen Tiguan Facelift
After a very short history, it is only 3 years old, the Volkswagen Tiguan has already received a facelift version for the 2011 model year. Official debut will be made in a few weeks at the Geneva Motor Show, but Volkswagen has revealed the first details today.
Of course do not expect impressive changes, but the few made are really improving the car’s look. The new Tiguan gets redesigned headlights, a fresh grille, a new bumper and LED technology for for the headlights and taillights. Interior will also get improved materials and new technologies. Volkswagen announced no changes under the hood, so we expect to see the usual TDI and TSI engines.
In Germany the new Tiguan will go on sale at a price of 24,175 euro for the Trend & Fun version with 1.4 TSI 122 HP engine. The Tiguan has long been one of the most popular Volkswagens in the world. Its highest volume markets: all of Europe, Russia, USA, China, Brazil and Australia.
Volkswagen Tiguan Facelift originally appeared on topspeed.com on Friday, 4 February 2011 09:00 EST.