Category: Motorsports

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Motorsports Toyota Video

Tanner Foust – Street Drift: Mulholland

Tanner Foust - Street Drift: Mulholland

If you know a little bit about the competitive drifting scene then you’ll know the name Tanner Foust. If you’ve never heard of him, watch and learn as he drifts his 600hp V8 powered Scion tC around a two-mile closed section of LA’s renowned Mulholland Drive.

If you didn’t know, the Scion tC is actually a Toyota, would you believe. Why don’t we get these in Australia?

Anyway, you might remember Jay Leno included Mulholland Drive in his home-grown Nürburgring clip. It’s a great looking piece of road, as the aerial shots from the Tanner Foust video show.

Tanner’s video is burning up after the jump. Just remember kids, this film was completed on a closed road with Police supervision, so don’t go trying this at home, okay.

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Motorsports Video

Top guns

Old skool rally compilation

If you were a fan of the video ‘This is rallying’, then you will love this clip as well. There’s eight minutes of thrills, spills and non-stop action. All your favourites are featured including Audi, Datsun, Ford, Lancia, Porshe, Toyota, many more. The video is all yours after the break.

[Thanks to Tom for the tip]

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Formula 1 News

Mark Webber to be honoured with civic reception

Mark Webber

Earlier this week Mark Webber arrived in Australia ahead of the Australian Grand Prix (25–28 March). As you might expect his time in Australia is full of promotional engagements, but Queanbeyan City Council has managed to get dibbs on Mark for a civic reception next Monday, 22 March.

A motorcade will travel down Queanbeyan’s main drag, Monaro Street, at 12:30pm before a reception is held at Council Chambers on Crawford Street. Queanbeyan Mayor Cr Tim Overall has invited the public to come along to support Mark and says, “Queanbeyan is proud of all of its sporting stars and is honoured to have such high-quality sports people representing it on all levels.

“The people of Queanbeyan have followed Mark’s career closely and the town celebrated as one when he crossed the finish line in Germany to record his first Grand Prix victory.”

Webber has also been acknowledged by Australian Grand Prix organsiers after they named a grandstand in his honour. The Webber Stand, just announced today, is situated in between the Fangio and Senna stands, near Turn 16.

You can relive Webber’s finest moments from the 2009 season, by checking out AUSmotive’s German and Brazilian Grand Prix galleries. Let’s hope there is more to come in 2010.

[Source: markwebber.com & grandprix.com.au]

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Lexus Motorsports

Lexus LF-A returns for Nürburgring 24 hour race

Lexus LF-A

Lexus, in partnership with Gazoo Racing, will return to the Nürburgring 24 hour race this year (13–16 May) with production versions of the LF-A supercar.

The cars will be driven by a mix of Japanese and German drivers, including Toyota master test driver Hiromu Naruse, Takayuki Kinoshita, Akira Ida, Juichi Wakisaka, Armin Hahne, Jochen Krumbach and Andre Lotterer. The driving talent has a great mix of GT racing and proven experience at the N24.

Powered by a 552hp V10 the LF-A certainly isn’t lacking for performance. Indeed, in road-going trim Lexus claim their supercar can reach 100km/h in 3.7 seconds, and is able to exceed 200mph (320km/h+).

Last year Gazoo Racing entered two pre-production models in the 24 hour enduro. They’ll be hoping for better success in 2010 with encouraging, if not spectacular, results achieved in the 2009 race. Only one of the LF-As finished the event, placing fourth in class (from five finishers) and 14th overall, some 41 laps behind the winning Manthey Racing Porsche 911 RSR. The second LF-A managed to complete 106 laps and almost 22 and a half hours of competition before withdrawing from the event.

More after the break.

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Audi MINI Challenge Motorsports

Short circuit

Clipsal500 - Chris Wootton rolls his MINI

The Clipsal 500 is currently underway in Adelaide. It’s one of the country’s biggest race meets and as well as the V8 Supercars there is a host of support categories. Series like the MINI Challenge and the Australian GT Championship are two of the higher profile categories.

As we know, motorsport is often filled with a lot of ups and downs. For Chris Wootton (pictured above), he got a bit of both when he blew a fuse and rolled his MINI at the chicane just after the start–finish line. He wasn’t the only one to short circuit at that corner, though. Sadly, Mark Eddy in his newly delivered Audi R8 LMS and Tony Quinn, in his Mosler MT900 GT3, also tasted concrete.

You can see all these incidents, and more, in the clip after the break. Fortunately none of the drivers were hurt in any of the accidents. There’s some beautiful machinery that’s been damaged and best wishes to the crews and team owners for a speedy return to competition.

[via V8TVNews | Thanks to Avril for the tip]

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Motorsports Video

Titan Movie – The beginning

Titan Movie teaser

Clash Production make some damn nice post-production videos of motorsport scenes. One such production is their Titan Movie project, which has been orbiting the blogosphere for a while now. So far, there’s been only been a couple of preview clips released, and a lot of the footage features racing from the Nürburgring.

However, until recently, most of the footage released had only featured action from the Grand Prix track at the Ring. Having a racing film showcasing the Nürburgring without having any action from the Nordschleife makes about as much sense as the Aston Martin Cygnet. It’d be little more than trading off the name for cynical and ulterior motives. It’s a good thing, then, that Clash have put things right with their latest teaser of Titan Movie which includes snippets of footage from the 2009 Nürburgring 24 hour race. There’s still not a lot from the Nordschleife, but we now have hope that there will be more to come.

You can see that, and the other clips after the jump. Enjoy!

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Formula 1 McLaren

McLaren F1 launches new website

McLaren launches new website

McLaren have just launched their new website for the 2010 Formula One season. As you would expect there’s lots of bells and whistles, perfectly placed logos and a general order about the way things are done.

There’s some good info on the team’s 2010 challenger, the MP4-25, as well as the drivers, reigning World Champion Jenson Button and former champ Lewis Hamilton.

One item really worth checking out during the year is the McLaren Race 1.0b feature that will provide fans with live GPS-supported coverage of qualifying and races. Telemetry and commentary will also be available. Sounds very much worth a look when the F1 circus hits the track in Bahrain. Not long to go now!

[Source: mclaren.com]

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Formula 1 Renault

17 men, three and a half seconds

Renault F1 pit crew

According to the Renault F1 team 3.5 seconds is all it will take to service an F1 car in 2010. That is, with the newly introduced ban on refuelling, their target time for changing a full set of tyres is under four seconds.

Renault F1 Team Sporting Director Steve Nielsen explains, “Three and a half seconds will be a decent stop, which has halved the time available for the crew to service the car compared to last year.”

If those numbers don’t confuddle your mind enough, then consider this, the Renault F1 website states the team has endured five hours of tyre change practice and that they have already managed to complete a number of stops in under three seconds. One, two, three, done. Amazing!

[Source: Renault F1]

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Formula 1

1950: The Formula One World Championship begins

1950 Silverstone F1 GP

There’s now just a few sleeps until the first Grand Prix of the 2010 season starts in Bahrain. This year the sport celebrates the 60th anniversary of the World Championship era. An era that began at Silverstone back in 1950, Saturday 13 May to be precise.

The first race of the new world order was won by Italian Giuseppe Farina at the wheel of an Alfa Romeo 158. In fact, Alfa 158s filled the first ever World Championship podium. Points were awarded to the first five drivers, and a pair of French Talbot-Lagos claimed the remaining points positions.

As we look ahead to what should be a fascinating new season, why don’t you take some time to look back and enjoy some highlights of that first race. Take the jump and witness a much simpler, more carefree era of Formula One.

[via rf1paddockpass]

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Audi Motorsports

Audi updates R8 GT3 racer for 2010

2010 Audi R8 LMS 'Evolution'

Back in 2008 Audi launched the race-going R8 LMS. The car was prepped for the 2009 season ready to race in GT3 categories across the globe.

Indeed, the four-pronged R8 attack on the 2009 Nürburgring 24 hour race almost ended Porsche’s recent domination of the event. The #99 Phoenix Racing entry held the lead for 17 hours until a drive shaft problem cost valuable time. In the end it was the #97 Abt Sportline car that finished in second place, highlighting the impressive debut by the R8. As well as that, the R8 LMS went on to secure three championships and 23 race wins during 2009.

For the 2010 season Audi have made some changes to their go fast machines to ensure they remain capable of leading the field. The ‘Evolution’ updates include revisions to the chassis, suspension and cooling systems. While on-board electronics and the race-tuned exhaust system have been further enhanced.

Customer deliveries of the 2010 spec cars have started, with the US-British alliance of United Autosports being the first in line. If you would like to join them and you have a spare €300K+ burning a hole in your pocket, well, I’m sorry, but you’re out of luck. The 2010 production run has sold out and all customer cars will be delivered before the end of April. If you’re still keen you’ll need to try your luck with the ‘Race Experience’ program or get your name on the list for the 2011 production run.

Owners of 2009 spec R8 LMS cars are able to make the same changes to the 2010 models to ensure they can now race with the latest specification.

Australian race fans will get their chance to see the 2009-spec R8 LMS up close next weekend at the Clipsal 500 in Adelaide. Mark Eddy, 2008 Australian GT Champion, is the first private buyer outside of Europe to get his hands on the purpose-built GT3 racer. Find out more on the Australian GT website.

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BMW Motorsports

BMW Z4 GT3 official images emerge

BMW Z4 GT3

Some official images of the BMW Z4 GT3 racecar have emerged and it looks pretty damn impressive, don’t you think. Okay, in a road car sense it’s actually a bit naff with all those wings and diffusers at the back. But, in a purpose built track car sense, bring it on!

If you’re a real BMW anorak you will probably recall that BMW have said they would never fit a V8 engine to the current Z4. Well, they lied. To be fair, the Z4 GT3 will never see full series production, so raiding the parts bin to make a kick arse racing machine can be excused.

Anyway, that engine, yep, it’s pretty much the same 4.0 litre V8 found in the M3 GT2. That means power is around 485hp and peak torque should be nudging 500Nm. There’s also a race-toughened 6 speed sequential transmission to help move things along.

I get the feeling some very wealthy men around the world (and possibly women too) are going to get a little bit excited about driving this car. More details as they come to hand.

[Source: Car]

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Formula 1

Mark Webber drives virtual lap of Bahrain

Red Bull Racing simulator, Bahrain

There’s less than a week to go until the first race of the 2010 F1 season. Bahrain is the first stop this year and Mark Webber helps build anticipation levels by taking us on a virtual lap of the circuit in the Red Bull Racing simulator. Just how will Mark and Sebastien go in the RB6 this year? Webber has shown good pace in pre-season and has been talking up his team’s chances. While, for many, Vettel is a dark horse for the 2010 world championship.

The lap can be viewed in full after the break.

[Thanks to Wes for the tip]

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