The Fiat twin cylinder 875cc multi-air engine has won the coveted Engine of the Year award for 2011. It also won awards as the Green Engine of the Year, Sub 1.0 litre Engine of the Year and also the Best New Engine Award. The engine has a very small turbo charger and produces around 85 PS of power.
Yearly Archives: 2011
Audi is mulling the launch of the A3 model car in India. The A3 is smaller than the A4 which is a C class sized car. All the German automakers are considering their smaller car models for India where size in terms of compactness will play a big role in eligibility for tax rebates and also the consumer preference. Small cars are easier to park and manoeuvre in cities which are increasingly plagued by burgeoning traffic.
A new Honda CRV which seems bigger and beefier than the present model has been spied internationally. The main change appears to be at the rear with the D pillar drawn back and the hatch door itself now having a discernible hump. This is leading to speculation that the vehicle may now have a third row of seating as well. Whatever the case, the international model will make it into India since the CRV is imported as a CBU into India.
The Indonesian version of the Innova called the Kijang has apparently been spotted with a face lift. The grill and the headlamps seem to be the changes on the outside front. It is not clear if the upgrade will also involve newer interiors and if any of the engine and other mechanicals will also be uprated. There has been news that the Innova is due for a face lift in India for 2012 and it remains to be seen if the Indonesian style face lift will be used for India as well.
Ever since his return to F1 last year with Mercedes GP, Michael Schumacher has found himself at the receiving end of things both on and off the track. Most pundits and fans believed that the comeback was a huge mistake that makes the legend look very ordinary now. There have been persistent rumours that Schumacher will retire at the end of this year, something that both he and his team have vigorously denied. David Coulthard believes that Schumacher is driving at his best but is not getting results because F1 has moved on to another plane in the three years that Schumacher was absent. However this year has seen Schumacher make a better start though he is still consistently out classed by his younger team mate Nico Rosberg. Schumacher’s last race in Turkey was marred by driving error but his team Principal Ross Brawn believes that Schumacher has the resilience to bounce back from that bad race and expects him to drive well at Barcelona. Whether Schumacher has it in him to win a race, leave alone a world championship is something that remains to be seen.
McLaren’s start to the 2012 season has not been spectacular. They have been caught on the back foot by Red Bull Racing and are only marginally better than Ferrari who started off with a car whose aero package was based on wrong wind tunnel calibrations. Ferrari have started working on the wind tunnel and have some upgrades which will hopefully improve the car’s performance. McLaren too has been working hard on ensuring that it too will catch up with Red Bull Racing and the team’s engineering director Martin Goss has said that they are taking up to 12 upgrades for their car for the Barcelona race and hope to get the better of Red Bull Racing.
Bahrain which was the scheduled season opener for Formula1 this year but could not hold the GP due to internal political unrest has now said that it is in a position to host the GP if the FIA and FOM are in a position to find an alternate date. The GP organizers were given till the beginning of June to decide and give their final commitment about conducting the GP this year. Now fans have written a letter to Bernie Ecclestone asking him to ensure that the GP is held this year. This letter has the signatures of two thousand Bahraini fans and more are likely to sign.
Adrian Newey the man behind the success of the Red Bull Racing team believes that Mark Webber’s contribution to the team is as important as Sebastian Vettel’s is despite Vettel winning the world championship last year and leading this year’s spectacularly. Vettel enjoys the support of consultant Helmut Marko who is not a big fan of Webber’s. Newey however believes that Webber’s feedback about the car is as important as Vettel’s and has strengths in areas where Vettel is not too strong. Newey therefore has expressed his desire to see Webber in the team even in the year 2012.
It was the year 1994. The Grand Prix at Imola in San Marino had already claimed the life of Roland Ratzenberger on Saturday, the day before the race day. There was already gloom in the paddock. And when the cars went out to race, Ayrton Senna who had just joined Williams F1 that year was in the lead when his car crashed exactly where Ratzenberger’s did and with the same consequence. This month sees the completion of 17 years after the death of the rookie and the legend. Adrian Newey was then the chief designer at Williams and he says that Senna’s death almost sent him and Technical Director Patrick Head into retirement from F1. Newey says that even today he is haunted by Senna’s death because the legend was driving a car designed by him when the fatal crash occurred.
Adrian Newey’s genius always sees him pushing the limits of newer design concepts and there is no doubt that the man has been the main force behind Williams and McLaren in the 1990s and the early part of the first decade of this century. Newey’s joining Red Bull Racing has changed the fortunes of the team and has made them world championship winners despite having a Renault engine that has huge power disadvantage over engines from Mercedes Benz, Ferrari and Cosworth. This year the Red Bull cars have been in a league of their own thanks to the exhaust blown diffuser. Red Bull has been using an ECU mapping which blows the exhaust at a constant speed even when the driver lessens his throttle inputs. This design has since been copied by McLaren and now even Team Lotus. However, the FIA has decided to ban the use of constant exhaust flow even when the driver has lifted off the throttle. A grace period has been given to the teams that are using this system and so they can use it this weekend at Barcelona, the venue for the Spanish GP. The motivation behind this ban is not yet known clearly, though there have been accusations that McLaren is behind it, something that McLaren has denied.