While putting together the piece on the Ferrari 340/375 MM Berlinetta Competizione we saw this photo of Eau Rouge taken during the 24 Hours of Spa in 1953. We thought it was worth sharing with you all.
After the break you can see the same corner as it appeared in 1965 and 2011.
[Source: RM Auctions]
This awkwardly styled, but still beautiful Ferrari 340/375 MM Berlinetta Competizione has just sold at auction for €9.856 million (AU$13.1m). Ferrari themselves declare it an Italian record for a classic Ferrari.
The car in question competed in the 1953 24 Hours of Le Mans and the 24 Hours of Spa; alas it failed to finish either race. However, it did taste victory thanks to with Mike Hawthorn and Umberto Maglioli at the 1953 Pescara 12 Hours.
Powered by a 4.5 litre V12 complete with triple Weber carburettors it boasted 340hp. By today’s standards a 4-speed manual gearbox is prehistoric for a top line racing car, so too the use of leaf springs. Of course, in its day the 375 MM was leading edge.
Chassis 0320AM was the car up for grabs and it was also raced in the World Sports Car Championship by no less than Mike Hawthorn, Alberto Ascari and Giuseppe Farina, all three were F1 world champions.
While this is the highest sale price achieved at auction by a Ferrari in Italy, it still falls short of the US$16.4 million paid for a 1957 250 Testa Rossa in 2011.
[Source: RM Auctions]
Remember how the F1 teams bitched about Pirelli’s tyres and kind of forced them into changes that were scheduled for introduction at the Canadian Grand Prix? Well, because all the teams can’t agree, the new tyres will only be used during Friday practice and not during the race.
It’s the delamination of the rear tyres that has caused a lot of the angst and Pirelli has replaced the steel belting with a kevlar belt to try and resolve the issue.
“We’ll be bringing two sets per team for Friday practice with a view to implementing the new rear tyres in Silverstone,” said a Pirelli spokesperson talking to Autosport. “As the regulations allow for this and for reasons of sporting equity, we think that this is the best way forward.”
We think the Fake Charlie Whiting twitter account sums it up best:
To recap:
Teams complain about the tyres
Pirelli offer to bring new tyres to Canada
Teams fail to unanimously agree to new tyres#facepalm— Fake Charlie Whiting says ¯_(?)_/¯ (@charlie_whiting) May 29, 2013
[Source: Autosport | Pic: Pirelli]
Aston Martin continues to squeeze more blood from the Vantage stone, this time in the form of a V12 Vantage S. We can’t blame them really, the Vantage is still one of the nicest looking sportscars money can buy and if they want to give it more power we won’t find cause to object.
The key figures from the car’s 6.0 litre V12 are 573PS (421kW) and 620Nm. That represents increases of 41kW and 50Nm on the standard V12 Vantage.
While we may bemoan yet another car has lost its manual gearbox in favour of a self-shifter—in this case a Sportshift III AM—at least the new box is 25kg lighter. And it has been tested, Aston says, in a variety of motorsport categories, as seen in the Vantage GT4, GT3 and GTE.
The exhaust has been adapted from the One-77 and along with forged alloy wheels helps deliver further weight reductions.
It does look fantastic and it sounds great as well. We’re just not so sure about the yellow and black bumble bee colour scheme. What do you think?
When we saw how Mercedes-Benz squandered the opportunity of running an F1 car around the Nordschleife we were pretty unhappy. Michael Schumacher barely got out of first gear it seemed.
In this new video, showing Michael’s lap from a worm’s eye view, we can tell that, at times, he did give the Mercedes F1 W02 a bit of a squirt now and then. But he also spent too much time dawdling along. Oh well.
The next-generation MINI is getting closer to its late-2013 launch and heavily disguised Cooper S (above) and Cooper (below) models have been spied in Germany. These are likely to be pre-production models, which started rolling down the line in April.
Longer and wider than the current R56 MINI, the new model will be the first to have a conventional instrument cluster; forever consigning the large centrally-mounted speedometer to the history books.
The Cooper S and JCW models will still use a turbocharged 1.6 litre engine, but lower-spec F56 MINIs will use three cylinder units developed by BMW.
MINI is continuing its global march from niche player to relative volume seller with word that a production facility in China is now on the cards. The Shenyang Plant is expected to commence production in 2015 and is slated to build MINIs and front-wheel drive BMWs destined for Asian markets.
At the moment Countrymans are built by Magna Styer in Austria and NedCar in the Netherlands is signed up to build F56 MINIs as well.
We rather liked it when all MINIs came from Oxford and they had stupidly sized speedos in the middle of the dash and were genuinely different to their competition. Now we’re alert, and maybe even alarmed, at the way BMW is slowly stripping away some of the character traits that made a MINI a MINI.
Please, BMW, don’t dilute the MINI brand down so much that it becomes just another BMW product.
Peugeot has continued its long teaser campaign for Sebastien Loeb’s upcoming attempt to conquer the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb. Here we have some new 2000px super images of Loeb’s 875hp 208 T16 along with a video of him testing the car on Mont Ventoux in France, which may be known to some of our cycling readers.
We got an amateur preview of this video shoot a while back, so it’s nice to see the edited final version from Peugeot.
The next time we see the 208 T16 it will be in Colorado for more testing in early–mid June, before the competition is run and won on 30 June.
You get the feeling the marketing department at Peugeot is going to be pretty pissed off if Loeb doesn’t bring home le bacon.
As you can see Nico Rosberg was pretty happy to have won the 2013 Monaco Grand Prix. And who can blame him. It’s one thing to win the race for yourself, but to do so 30 years after your old man achieved the same thing is very special. Well done him and well done Keke.
The existence of the Monaco Grand Prix really is an anachronism in the 21st century, but we hope it never goes. Watching the cars fly through turns 13 and 14 is perhaps the best example of the directness of F1 cars we see all year. And the dramatic elevation changes on such a short track, although flattened out on TV screens, also makes for one of the most spectacular circuits all year.
In our latest F1 in pictures gallery we have exactly 100 images from the glitz and glamour enjoyed by all in Monte Carlo.
WRC driver Michal Kosciuszko has ended his relationship with MINI and the Motorsport Italia team due to ongoing mechanical and technical issues. With immediate effect he will now start preparations to race a Ford Fiesta WRC with M-Sport.
It’s fair to say MINI’s comeback to the world rally stage, while accompanied with great fanfare and promise early on, has been a total disaster. If not from a technical and sporting point of view, certainly from a public relations standpoint. MINI re-entered rallying with excellent good will in the rally community, but we’re not sure how much, if any, remains. BMW is a company with outstanding motorsport heritage, but it has hung MINI out to dry.
“I am a player who is committed to high standards and consistently strives to achieve the intended objective. The place where I got, the WRC, confirms my determination,” said Kosciuszko. “The beginning of the season for us was technically very difficult, so I thank my strategic partner, Grupa LOTOS, which showed great understanding.
“Together we decided to change the car and work with M-Sport. I would like to thank Motorsport Italia for co-operation and wish them luck for the future.”
Kosciuszko will miss this weekend’s Acropolis Rally but is expected to line up for Rally d’italia in late June.
[Source: wrc.com | Pic: Motorsport Italia]
Want a new BMW 8 Series? Then this Pininfarina Gran Lusso Coupé will make you smile. Indeed, we’re pretty sure you’ll smile from almost angle—it is a beautiful thing—so long as you don’t look too long at the huge kidney grille from front on.
The Gran Lusso is a one-off joint project between BMW Design and noted Italian design house Pininfarina. “The appeal of this collaboration with Pininfarina is that you get another, very different and special angle on facets like luxury and exclusivity,†notes Karim Habib, Head of BMW Design.
“The Italian company, after all, has always been a byword for these criteria in particular, demonstrating time and again its keen sensitivity and exceptional finesse in these areas.â€
Being a true concept vehicle there’s not a lot of technical detail and all we can tell you is that it’s powered by a V12 engine. But that’s it, pretty much. Although you’d expect the engine to be based on the 6.0 litre V12 found in the 760i.
Technically speaking if this concept did materialise into a production-ready 8 Series there’d need to be some extra work. Visually, though, not a lot would need to change. And so long as they rework that front grille we think that would be a very good thing.
Nico Rosberg’s victory at the Monaco Grand Prix could be in doubt after stewards referred the protest about their secret test with Pirelli to the FIA.
The FIA has subsequently released a statement and we think it will make for concerning reading in the Mercedes AMG garage.
“At the beginning of May, the FIA was asked by Pirelli if it was possible for it to carry out some tyre development testing with a team, using a current car,” the FIA statement begins. “Within the contract Pirelli has with the FIA as single supplier, there is provision for them to carry out up to 1000km of testing with any team—provided every team is offered the opportunity to do so.”
Trouble is the FIA says they haven’t had any correspondence to suggest anyone other than Mercedes was invited to the test by Pirelli. Furthermore they suggest they would be within their rights to escalate the matter to the International Tribunal.
“The Tribunal may decide to inflict penalties that would supercede any penalty the stewards of the meeting may have issued. Such procedure would be followed in pursuance of the FIA Judicial and Disciplinary Rules,†the FIA said.
In that context, these comments from Ross Brawn, Mercedes AMG Team Princicpal, made before the three-hour stewards hearing was over, probably weren’t the smartest things to say: “Pirelli has been asking teams to help them out for 12 months and people haven’t been supporting them.
“There are lots of communications between Pirelli and teams asking them to do 1000km for them, and we obviously had an issue in Bahrain with Lewis [Hamilton] which we were quite anxious about—and we made the effort to help them. Nobody else seems to have done that.”
Hmm, Ross, that’s probably because nobody else had strung together three pole positions at the time only to suffer poor race results due to tyre degradation issues.
You can read the full FIA statement after the break.
[Source: Formula1.com | Pic: Mercedes AMG]
We’re sure Nico Rosberg is still smiling after his strong win at the Monaco Grand Prix overnight. You can read what he had to say after the race, along with the words from Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber, in the post-race press conference below.
Actually, Mark’s final comment in regard to the Mercedes secret tyre test controversy is worth reading.
Speaking about his crash with Romain Grosjean, Daniel Ricciardo said: “I could see that Grosjean had got a good run out of the tunnel and that he was close, so I defended my line and the next thing I knew he was over the back of me. I haven’t seen it on a TV yet, but at the moment I believe it was a misjudgement on his part and a costly one that was quite dangerous, even if we are both okay.â€
The race stewards said that Romain can have a 10-place grid penalty for the next race. And Grosjean won’t win himself many friends in our neck of the woods by blaming Daniel for underperforming in qualifying and the race.
“Daniel seemed to be really struggling with his rear tyres and they looked to have a lot of graining,” said Grosjean. “I’d been following him for almost all of the 61 laps but I was caught out by him braking early in the middle of the circuit and there was nowhere for me to go.
“It’s a frustrating end to the weekend, but the real damage was done in qualifying when I didn’t get through to Q3. That was Daniel again who I was held up by, but it certainly wasn’t my intention to end my race in the back of his car!”
[Pic: Getty Images/Red Bull]