Bernie Ecclestone is still sceptical of Newscorp taking over the rights of Formula1. He believes that “pay per view” TV will kill the sport completely. He believes that free to air television is the way to go. Ron Dennis of McLaren expressed unhappiness over Exor the other member along with Newscorp being involved in the take over since that company has links to Ferrari. Bernie Ecclestone, however, did not share these qualms.
Bernie Ecclestone has advised that some more time should elapse before taking a decision on slotting the Bahrain GP back in this year’s Formula1 calender. The organizers of the Bahrain GP who are in Istanbul for the Turkish GP have said that they are now ready to organize the race and that it was up to the FIA and the Formula One Management to decide when they could find a new date. Bahrain GP organizers have also said that they are very much open to the idea of not having a GP this year if there was a logistical problem, but they will definitely be back for next year by March.
Massimiliano Biaggi, also called the Roman Emperor, has smashed the pole record at Monza for the World Superbikes and has qualified in pole position on his Alitalia Aprilia. The ageing Italian who is the defending champion has had a difficult start to the season this year but he seems to be putting together things and building his defence properly. Meanwhile his rival, another ageing rider, Carlos Checa on the Althea Ducati could only manage eleventh on the grid. Checa has a history of not going too well at Monza. Aprilia had done some additional work for the Monza race since the hallowed circuit in Italy is where Aprilia, an Italian marque, with an Italian rider would like to stamp its authority over its arch rival, the other Italian marque, Ducati. The races should be fun.
India’s premier tyre manufacturer MRF has launched the ZSLK branded eco friendly tyres that use a silica compound that offers less rolling resistance and thereby increases fuel efficiency. At the moment the tyres are only offered for cars and not two wheelers. These tyres are tubeless radials, which is slowly becoming the norm in the industry.
For some time now there have been persistent rumours of a carburetted version of the Royal Enfield Bullet 500 Classic. The reasons given for this were ease of maintenance and also maintaining a truly classic identity. Motorbeam.com now says that this is not going to happen and that the Bullet 500 Classic will come only with fuel injection. We say that is the way it should be, to make the quirky bike a little more reliable and predictable. However, this would mean that a quick fix at a road side mechanic shop is no longer possible.
For some time now there has been talk of the launch of the cheaper, lighter and more cheerful Mitsubishi Pajero Sport in India. The Pajero name enjoys tremendous brand recall in India owing mainly to a number of film stars and other glitterati owning this iconic brand’s cars. Hindustan Motors who sells Mitsubishi products in India sells the couple of generations old Pajero, the latest generation Montero and the latest generation Outlander off roaders/soft roaders in India. To complete the range, HM will start selling the Pajero Sport from next year with the launch of the vehicle being pegged during the Auto Expo of 2012 in Delhi.
Ferrari celebrated 150 years of the unification of Italy by calling its F1 car for this year, as the F-150. It got into some trouble with Ford over that nomenclature since For sells a truck with that very same designation. Confabulations between the two companies led to Ferrari calling their F1 car F-150th Italia. Now Italian two wheeler manufacturer MV Augusta is following this lead of Ferrari’s. It has launched a special edition of its naked bike 990R Brutale. The special edition is being called the 990R Brutale 150 Italia Special Edition. Whew that is long. Only 150 of these will be made for an exclusive clientale.
Honda Motorcycles and Scooters India began the booking process of the CBR 250R model in the month of January. Reports have suggested that this motorcycle has garnered 4,500 bookings. However, deliveries of this bike are yet to commence. Is this also due to the effect of the tsunami? It seems so. But for all those who booked their CBR 250R the wait is proving to be agonizing.
Sebastian Vettel has kept his qualifying record impeccable by qualifying in pole position at Istanbul for the Turkish GP. This is his fourth pole in as many races this year. If the final GP of last year, Abu Dhabi is taken into consideration, Vettel has so far had five pole positions consecutively. In what seems to be a change of luck, his team mate Mark Webber finished qualifying in second place, with Nico Rosberg of the resurgent team Mercedes Petronas taking third place on the grid for tomorrows race. Michael Schumacher, his team mate could only take the eighth place in spite of looking good for better in Q1 and Q2. Felipe Massa seemed victim of another perplexing strategy from Ferrari. He set fastest lap in Q1 on soft tyres and chose not to run in Q3 in order to conserve tyres for the race tomorrow. Fourth place on the grid went to Lewis Hamilton while his team mate Jenson Button took sixth. In the McLaren sandwich will be Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso. Lotus Renault drivers Vitaly Petrov and Nick Heidfeld finished seventh and ninth on the grid respectively while Felipe Massa will start from the tenth position. Rubens Barrichello takes the eleventh place on the grid while Force India cars of Adrian Sutil and Paul Di Resta will start the race from 12th and 13th places. Narain Karthikeyan will start from P22 and Sauber’s Kamui Kobayashi whose car broke down without setting any time will have to appeal to the stewards to allow him to start the race since as per the new 107% rule he will not be eligible to start the race.
The first practice session of Friday at the Istanbul circuit was wet and points leader Sebastian Vettel has crashed out, damaging the Red Bull Racing car sufficiently to not take part further on Friday. This session saw Fernando Alonso emerge at the top but in the next session which was run in completely dry conditions Jenson Button emerged on the top in his McLaren Mercedes Benz car. Button expressed happiness, while Alonso said that Ferrari had made good progress but that was not enough since the others raised the bar. Vettel for his part said that his not taking part in further action on Friday would not dent his chances of a good qualifying and a good race. Thus far the Mercedes cars of Nico Rosberg and Michael Schumacher have shown good pace. More will unravel in the qualifying session of today.