Nick Heidfeld has expressed his unhappiness over Lotus Renault team mate Vitaly Petrov’s driving. The two made contact without any disastrous consequences, while Heidfeld was trying to overtake his younger team mate. Heidfeld believes that he should have the right of way and not blocked dangerously like Petrov did. Heidfeld is a known whiner who has never a Formula1 race ever.
Yearly Archives: 2011
Michael Schumacher’s wheel banging with Vitaly Petrov in the early part of the Turkish Grand Prix destroyed whatever chances he may have had of a decent finish. The rear wheels of Petrov’s Renault went over the front wing of Schumacher’s Mercedes necessitating a very early pit stop from which Schumacher never recovered. The good thing however is that he has owned his mistake, a rarity for Schumacher. It does appear as if age mellows people.
We again bring in Burn Your Fuel.com for this piece of news as well. Once again Burn Your Fuel has credited Car India for a picture of the (supposed) Skoda Rapid on the assembly line inside the factory. The car does look like a Skoda and has a body style of a three box sedan. BYF has said that the face will be that of a Skoda while the rest of the body will be that of the Volkswagen Vento and even the engines will in probability be the same. We have checked Car India.in for the pictures but we have not found them there. Adding to the intrigue is BYF’s note on the photographs saying that if the owner of the photos wants them to be removed they will do so gladly. So if you want to see this picture and the one of the Scout head straight to burnyourfuel.com pronto.
Burn Your Fuel.com has posted a picture of the Skoda Scout testing outside of Pune. The Scout is essentially a Fabia with side cladding and raised suspension to take on the rough roads better. While there are no official plans announced about the launch of this vehicle the picture put up by Burn Your Fuel has the red number plates which are used for cars that are being tested. Burn Your Fuel has credited this to Car India.
Eugene Laverty broke his duck in World Superbike Racing in style. Laverty joined the list of hallowed names who have done a double at Monza. After winning the first race convincingly, Laverty won the second with a last corner overtaking move that demoted team mate Marco Melandri to second place. Max Biaggi who was leading the race was handed a penalty when he cut through a chicane and rejoined by crossing the white line which is there for the safety of the riders. Biaggi had to serve a drive through and this dropped him to eleventh place from where he battled to finish eighth ahead of points leader Carlos Checa who could finish only in tenth. However, this moved Biaggi down to third place in overall placings so far while Melandri went to second place in the standing with a fourth and second place respectively. The lone Suzuki in the field this year had something to cheer about when Michel Fabrizio took the final podium position.
Red Bull Racing broke their Istanbul bogey with Sebastian Vettel finally winning at the Turkish Grand Prix. Vettel was followed home in second place by team mate Mark Webber who is experiencing a resurgence of sorts since the last race. The final podium place went to Fernando Alonso of Ferrari. Mercedes’ promise came to not much with Nico Rosberg slipping back to finish fifth while Lewis Hamilton finished in fourth for McLaren. Jenson Button’s race was destroyed by a tyre strategy gone wrong. Button stopped thrice as against four times by others and his tyres went off towards the end of the race allowing Rosberg to catapult past him. Button finished in sixth with the Renaults of Nick Heidfeld and Vitaly Petrov finishing in 7th and 8th while STR’s Sebastian Buemi came home in 9th position. Kamui Kobayashi yet again showed his true racing grit by coming from dead last on the grid to finish in 10th position and collect a point for Sauber. Michael Schumacher’s wretched season continued with him tangling with Vitaly Petrov very early and having to pit. This pushed him to last on the track and he finally finished in 12th position. Force India’s Adrian Sutil finished 13th while Paul Di Resta retired due to mechanical failure. Narain Karthikeyan finished at the tail end of the field.
Chaz Davies beat team mate Luca Scassa for a victory in the World Supersport Race at Monza. The two Yamahas finished ahead of Fabien Foret on a Ten Kate Honda. Davies finished nearly five seconds ahead of his team mate while Foret finished a further 3 seconds behind. Fourth place went to Broc Parkes who finished about 12 seconds behind Fabien Foret. In World Supersports category 600cc production machines are used while in Superbikes 1000cc production machines are used. However, in both cases bikes make a lot more power because of tuning the bikes that takes them to a whole new level.
We reported here that Mercedes Benz India was considering bringing their smaller cars to India. If the Concept A-Class unveiled at the Shanghai Motor Show is anything to go by, then the 2012 A-Class definitely should make the Mercedes stable in India a lot more glamorous.
Image Courtesy: Autoblog.com via Autoblog.it
As Mercedes Benz puts it, the interplay of complex concave and convex surfaces, best observed in profile, formed by two very prominent crease lines expresses the unrestrained dynamism of the Concept A Class. Although a mini MPV in its previous iterations worldwide, the 2012 A Class seems to have walked a different path, with rumours of the AMG mill packing close to 270bhp. Not that the Concept A Class is any less utilitarian. It seats four, has decent space in the boot and is supposed to be out in 3 and 5 door versions, and it manages to do everything in style.
We have no clue why one too many manufacturers are trying to draw inspiration from the universe, all we know is, after the Volvo Concept Universe, Mercedes Benz treads the same path, explaining that the ‘dot’ structure radiator grille, apart from making its own ‘three-dimensional, expressive statement’ also puts the three point logo at the centre of its own universe. We have to say, Mercedes’ concept with the hexagonal cross section ‘dots’ symbolize the non-existent boundaries of the Universe a tad better than the layered rectangular shapes of the Volvo.
Mercedes Benz seems to have put in serious effort into designing the headlights. All that can be done with LEDs seems to have been done by other marquees, so Mercedes decided to bring in optical fibres to grab our attention. We’ll have to wait until Auto-Expo 2012 to witness the effect the optical fibres arranged in a wing shaped enclosure with aluminium sleeves have on our extremely enthusiastic Pragati Maidan auto enthusiasts.
For once, there seems to be no necessity to use the often repeated ‘the pictures do not do justice to the car’ line. The Concept A-Class bleeds style and character and definitely is bound to be on wishlists. That does beg the questions, what about previous owners most of whom wanted an understated, functional and reliable car to commute? Will they take to the radical change in the styling?
The interiors draw inspiration from aeronautical elements, and uses ‘bionic’ structure and high tech materials. The dashboard, Mercedes claims is inspired by aircraft wings. We are having a hard time spotting the aircraft wing contours in the dashboard, but we do think that the instrument pods might be inspired by jet turbines mounted under the wings. The Concept A Class with its panoramic sun roof boasts of excellent natural lighting in addition to the artificial lighting that seems to be growing wilder and wilder with each concept. Mercedes claims you can Facebook and Tweet and more using the ‘multimedia’ instrument, but we’d advise you that status messages about what you had for lunch can wait until you’re home. How important are in-car communication devices, in today’s world of extremely competent smartphones and tablets, is something we’ll have to wait and see.
Images Courtesy of Autoblog.com and Autoblog.it
Yamaha Factory Racing Team’s Eugene Laverty rode a near flawless race to win the first race at Monza in World Superbikes by convincingly beating back Aprilia’s and Max Biaggi’s challenge. Third place went to Leon Camier riding the BMW Motorrad motorcycle. Biaggi’s main competition and points leader so far, Carlos Checa finished in eighth place after having started in eleventh. With this Biaggi has closed the points gap between himself and Checa to around thirty. Biaggi’s race was characterized by sloppy mistakes that saw him lose second position repeatedly to Camier and Marco Melandri on the other works Yamaha. However he was able to hold on to the second place in the end. Kawasaki’s misery continued with Joan Lascorz crashing out and Tom Sykes not making the top ten. Chris Vermeulen did not start the race due to his leg swelling up again. BMW Italia rider and former double World Superbike Champion James Toseland too did not start the race due to a wrist injury not healing adequately.
India’s Narain Karthikeyan coming back into Formula1 after a five year hiatus has been finding that his team mate Vitantonio Liuzzi is consistently out performing him. In qualifying in Istanbul, Liuzzi set a time that was almost a second quicker than Narain’s fastest time. Liuzzi was able to qualify in the 21st position, while Narain managed 23rd. (Grid positions will now change due to Jerome D’Ambrosio’s penalty which will demote him to 24th position while Kamui Kobayashi in the Sauber will start in 23rd after his car failed in qualifying and he did not set a time. Kobayashi has been allowed to race in spite of the 107% rule since the Sauber has been a good car this year with Kobayashi even finishing in the top ten). Narain has said that he should have done as well as his team mate at the least and that he will look to improve his race pace.