In what is becoming a boring too predictable thing Sebastian Vettel has yet again taken pole position in the build up to the European Grand Prix at Valencia. There has been only one occasion so far when Vettel did not qualify on pole but that time too it was his team mate Mark Webber who grabbed pole. In today’s qualifying Red Bull locked out the front row with Mark Webber taking P2 for tomorrow’s race. McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton took the third place on the grid while fourth and fifth places went to Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso and Felipe Massa respectively. Jenson Button in the second McLaren qualified sixth and Mercedes GP drivers Nico Rosberg and Michael Schumacher will occupy seventh and eighth places on the starting grid. Ninth went to Nick Heidfeld driving for the Lotus Renault team and Force India’s Adrian Sutil made it to Q3 and took tenth place on the grid while his team mate Paul Di Resta qualified in 12th place behind the Renault of Vitaly Petrov. India’s Narain Karthikeyan qualified last in 24th position in his Hispania Racing Team car but well inside the 107% rule.
Yearly Archives: 2011
Marco Simoncelli has made Assen his home by dominating in all the practice sessions, in the wet and in the dry, and qualifying his Gresini Honda on pole position for tomorrow’s race. Super Sic has been qualifying well only to crash in races while being at the front of the field. His fans, his team and he will be hoping that tomorrow is the day when his fortunes for 2011 change for the better. In second position for the race tomorrow will be Ben Spies after an impressive performance which saw him on provisional pole for a while. Spies has out qualified defending champion and works Yamaha teammate Jorge Lorenzo whose best efforts could only put him in P4 for tomorrow’s race. The increasingly irascible and hostile Casey Stoner on the Repsol Honda finished third on the starting grid while teammate Andrea Dovizioso could manage only a fifth on the grid. Cal Crutchlow recovering from a shoulder surgery performed only last week finished an impressive sixth on the starting grid on his Monster Tech3 Yamaha. Karel Abraham out performed all Ducatis to gain 7th place on the starting grid. The session saw Valentino Rossi with a new chassis struggle like he did in Silverstone to finish only 11th on the grid while Nicky Hayden his teammate using the unmodified GP11 performed better than him. Tomorrow’s race will be interesting for sure.
It hasn’t been more than two days since we showed you the new MINI Coupé and MINI has unveiled the John Cooper Works (JCW) Coupé Endurance version that will slide into the public eye at this year’s 24-hour race at the Nürburgring-Nordschleife circuit, an event with a Hall of Fame that has too many Porsches and BMWs in it.
You have to give it to MINI for having the er.. guts to plonk their new baby into something as gruelling as the 24 Hour Endurance. Drawing from the experience gained from the MINI challenge sprint racing, MINI has come up with the 965 kilogram ( 2127 lbs for some of you ) Coupé with the 1.6-litre four-cylinder unit MINI John Cooper Works engine. Working with a twin-scroll turbocharger and petrol direct injection this powerplant delivers 250 hp, and something MINI calls the ‘Overboost’ function pushes peak torque up to 330 N-m ( 243 foot-pounds for you, again) Top speed is in excess of 240 km/h.
The Coupé which has a much more raked windshield than the hatch, has reduced aerodynamic drag. The adjustable shock absorbers allow the suspension setup to be tuned depending on requirements.
The John Cooper Works Aerodynamics Package further enhances the Coupé’s handling; the front splitter, rear diffuser and adjustable rear wing generate downforce, optimising the balance between the front and rear axle.
Safety features include a roll cage welded to the body, six-point safety belt and Formula One-style HANS (Head And Neck Support) system. The two seats from the Coupé have been thrown out of the window for a single sports bucket seat.
The MINI JCW Endurance Coupé adopts the proven braking system with Race ABS from MINI Challenge racing and adds a specially tuned DSC dynamic control system. A 4 point pneumatic jack is integrated with the chassis, for rapid pitstops.
The dispute over the engine formula for F1 cars seems to have found a resolution. All engine manufacturers with the exception of Renault were against the four cylinder 1.6 litre turbo charged formula proposed by the FIA. It appears that turbo charged 1.6 litre V6 engines will be the new formula after a consensus has been reached. However, the new rules will come into force in 2014 and not 2013 as was earlier envisaged.
Valentino Rossi has blamed Casey Stoner for taking the Ducati MotoGP bike along a wrong path of development and that was the reason why he was languishing where he is. In contrast to this year’s bike Rossi claims next year’s steed to be “his”. Rossi was implying that Stoner did not have good development skills. Casey Stoner did fightback saying that he did whatever he could within the constraints of the money cap that Ducati had imposed upon itself. This weekend Rossi will ride the GP11.1 (as the cross between this year’s engine and next year’s chassis is being called) at the Assen TT GP. The Ducati chassis does not consist of a frame. The front and the rear are attached to the engine which acts as a stressed member. Rossi also gets to try out Ducati’s version of seamless transmission that Honda has been using. Assen will be interesting to say the least.
In the last couple of days it has come out that Ducati will be using the chassis of next year’s GP 12 bike with the 800cc engine of this year’s GP11 bike. For sometime now Valentino Rossi has been expressing unhappiness over the handling of the GP11 but has expressed satisfaction at the way the GP12 handles. It now turns out that Ducati will mate the 800cc engine to the new chassis. The Spanish press which is firmly behind Jorge Lorenzo has cried foul over this stating that this is bending of rules and that Rossi has been testing a GP11 on track when he was supposedly testing next year’s bike. MotoGP rules have allowed for limited testing of next year’s bike while testing of this year’s motorcycle is strictly prohibited. The FIM has clarified that the testing went under its supervision and that Ducati did not break any rules. The Italian press has pointed out that the mounting points of the 800cc engine for next year’s bike are different from those of the 1000cc engine and that Ducati is actually taking risk in trying something like this out, since it will only be in the FP and race of this weekend’s Assen GP that the new combo will have turned a wheel. The Italian press has mocked the “stupidity” of the Spanish press.
Force Motors has apparently named its Guangdong Foday Explorer III based SUV Force One. This has only just been brought out on its website by Indian Autos Blog. The report on IAB says that today is just the unveiling and that the actual launch of the vehicle will be 45 days from today. For more details head for indianautosblog.com
The small SUV that Mahindra is testing and that which is being called the Mini Xylo (for the lack of any other alternative) has been keeping the Indian consumer waiting for sometime now. There are all kinds of conflicting stories about the probable launch of the vehicle but Indian Autos Blog has received spy pics of the interior of the vehicle from one of its readers. Check them out indianautosblog.com, they are interesting.
When the Koleos SUV is launched in India in a few months time, it will be the refreshed version that has only just been revealed to the world. This seems to be a good move since the Indian consumer will get the latest Koleos right from the word go. It is nice to see that car makers no longer take the Indian consumer for granted.
Toyota has officially revealed that the Etios Liva hatchback car will be launched on the 27th of June, 2011. The car’s launch was delayed owing mainly to reasons such as 1) Inadequate capacity (there was a long waiting list for the Etios Sedan) and 2) the tsunami that hit Japan. Toyota has put these problems behind now with increased production of the Etios which is now available after a wait of around a month and parts from Japan are now being procured. It goes without saying that the Etios Liva will not be available of the shelf. There will still be a booking even if the waiting period is smaller.