Looking virtually identical to the standard model, the car features a turbocharged 2.0-liter four-cylinder engine that develops 259 hp (193 kW / 263 PS) and 260 lb-ft (353 Nm) of torque.
Rene Arnoux Peter Arundell Alberto Ascari Peter Ashdown Ian Ashley Gerry Ashmore
In breaking news, the Australian Supercross Series has announced a tie-in with MotoGP. By tying in with MotoGP, specifically the famous Moto GP race at Phillip Island, supercross will benefit worldwide by exposing the sport to millions of new fans that follow MotoGP.
MotoGP is run by DORNA. The Australian Supercross Series is run by International Entertainment Group.
All the events will be at Phillip Island, this coming October 26 thru 28.
The supercross race will be round two of the Australian Supercross series, at a brand new track at the Phillip Island Grand Prix Circuit.
The current MotoGP world champion is from Australia, Casey Stoner. The current Australian Supercross Champion is Jay Marmont.
Australian Grand Prix Corporation CEO, Andrew Westacott, said the announcement means a ticket to the AirAsia Australian Motorcycle Grand Prix is now better value than ever (because fans can attend the supercross race at no extra charge). (READ MORE BELOW)
Source: http://www.supercross.com/news/global-supercross-news-aussie-sx-series-ties-into-motogp
Tim Ferry Ashley Fiolek Ernesto Fonseca Lauris Freibergs Paul Friedrichs Steven Frossard
Filed under: Spy Photos, Sedan, Performance, Maserati, Luxury
Maserati's sub-Quattroporte sedan spotted testing originally appeared on Autoblog on Mon, 30 Jul 2012 19:20:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Permalink | Email this | CommentsSource: http://www.autoblog.com/2012/07/30/maseratis-sub-quattroporte-sedan-spotted-testing/
Rene Arnoux Peter Arundell Alberto Ascari Peter Ashdown Ian Ashley Gerry Ashmore
Source: http://www.zimbio.com/MotoGP/articles/oEdcglR-cS7/Iannone+Redding+will+test+Ducati+Mugello
Manfred Herweh Sanadori Hikita Ernst Hiller Eric Hinton Harry Hinton Osamu Hiwatashi
Nissan has revealed the first photos with the production-ready Pathfinder that is scheduled to go on sale later on this year. 
Erwin Bauer Zsolt Baumgartner Elie Bayol Don Beauman Karl Gunther Bechem Jean Behra
Here are two new videos, courtesy of Alli Sports.
Let's start with Jeremy "Twitch" Stenberg.
This video by Alli of Jeremy is described like this: Jeremy "Twitch" Stenberg comes from the original days of FMX. Freestyle motocross didn't exist when he was offered his first paycheck to jump, a surreal beginning to a never-ending epic. Twitch has done it all from X Games Gold to staring in his own film, 'Twitch's 420% All Natural.' Recently, Twitch teamed up with Famous Stars and Straps to create his own JS signature line of clothing. Still taking the FMX world by storm, Twitch is expanding his scope into the world of SuperLite off-road truck racing where he has already been making a solid name for himself. Take a few minutes and get to know one of the best in the business in this Alli Show featuring Jeremy "Twitch" Stenberg.
And now, onto World MX 2 Motocross Champion Kenny Roczen. This video by Alli highlites Kenny at the recent Lucas Oil Budds Creek AMA Pro Motocross race. Ken Roczen, #70, gives you some insight to how his day went at Budds Creek. With great starts in each moto, Roczen started things off with speed. Taking a second place finish in the first moto and then another second place in the second moto, Roczen finished with a respectable second place overall finish for the day. Hear from the rider himself as Roczen invites you to hang out with him at Budds Creek in this Day With.
Source: http://www.supercross.com/features/2-new-videos-kenny-roczen-jeremy-qtwitchq-stenberg
Z Line Designs Toyota Parker Kligerman Trevor Bayne Out! Pet Care Toyota Jason Leffler Great Clips Toyota
It's not often Fernando Alonso is overcome with emotion, but he only just managed to hold it together as he stood on the podium after a quite stunning victory in the European Grand Prix.
His voice had already cracked as he giggled his delight on the team radio on his slowing-down lap - and in the pits Ferrari team boss Stefano Domenicali was in the same state as he praised a "fantastic" drive by the Spaniard.
But listening to the Spanish and Italian national anthems, the magnitude of the moment almost got the better of Alonso. He choked a bit, grinned, almost cried, gritted his teeth and then collected himself.
No wonder he was so emotional - in the previous half an hour or so, it had all come together to create a perfect weekend for him.
Fernando Alonso (centre) celebrates winning the European GP with second place Kimi Raikkonen (left) and third place Michael Schumacher (right). Photo: Getty
Alonso has driven some outstanding races in his career - he is generally regarded within F1 as the finest driver in the world - but this one has to be right up there with the very best.
Fighting up from 11th place on the grid, he pulled off some quite brilliant overtaking moves to make his way up into contention, the opportunism and skill never better than when he separated Lotus's Romain Grosjean from second place immediately after a restart following a safety car period.
That move meant Alonso inherited the lead when Sebastian Vettel's dominant Red Bull retired further around the same lap. Then, as he completed a spectacular victory, his day was made perfect when the man he regards as his main title rival, Lewis Hamilton, retired with two laps to go.
Both his main rivals out of the race, a momentous win in his home grand prix and less than 24 hours after Spain's football team made it into the semi-finals of Euro 2012. No wonder he was close to tears.
Of course, luck was involved in Alonso's win. He was not going to beat Vettel before the German's retirement - no one was - and he would not have been in a position to challenge Grosjean at the re-start had it not been for yet another pit-stop problem for McLaren.
But Alonso put himself in the position to gain from others' misfortune, and all the other positions he gained he worked for and won in a style befitting one of the greatest racing drivers the world has seen.
Ferrari's superbly quick pit crew played a part, too - one rival engineer said this weekend that they had moved the goalposts for pit stops this year.
But the fact remains that Alonso would not have had to do what he did had Ferrari's strategists not made the error that left him down in 11th on the grid - a decision for which the driver must share some blame.
Ferrari failed to realise that Alonso would need to fit a second set of the 'soft' tyres in second qualifying to be sure of progressing into the top 10 shoot-out.
Lotus had also planned to follow Ferrari's strategy of running a set of 'medium' tyres in Q2 followed by a set of 'softs'.
But when the English team saw how close it was in Q1, they realised they could not afford to take the risk, and switched to running two sets of 'softs' in Q2 and only one in the top 10 shoot-out.
It's impossible to know where Alonso would have ended up on the grid had he made it through.
Fortunately for Ferrari, their blushes were spared by his stellar performance on Sunday - on a track where it had previously been almost impossible to overtake but which came alive this year with the combination of degrading tyres and a DRS overtaking zone judged exactly right.
Ferrari took a fair bit of stick for the decision - and rightly so. It would be dangerous of them not to learn from it for this is not the first time this season that their strategy has been found wanting.
Alonso might have won in Barcelona had Ferrari not allowed Williams to get Pastor Maldonado ahead of him by making their second stop earlier.
As Alonso admitted himself, a win was also on the cards in Monaco had Ferrari reacted more quickly to his blistering pace on his in-lap and left him out to do a couple more.
And in Canada, where he fell back to fifth, he should have finished at least second - and could possibly have won - but the team failed to react to his tyres losing grip dramatically in the closing stages.
Had Ferrari got those calls right, Alonso could have been heading into the Valencia weekend on the back of two wins and a second place, rather than a second, a third and a fifth.
That's 27 points thrown away even before the error in qualifying this weekend. In a season as close as this, even if Alonso wins the title it is unlikely to be by that much.
In each case, the error has been a result of apparently not being reactive enough - being either too fixed on a specific, pre-ordained strategy, and/or too focused on one specific rival and not looking at the bigger picture.
That was exactly what happened in Abu Dhabi in 2010, when another strategy error handed the title on a plate to Vettel.
Ferrari have now got back many of those points thanks to the problems suffered by Vettel and Hamilton.
Despite Vettel's retirement, the Red Bull showed frightening pace in Valencia following the introduction of a major upgrade, as BBC F1 technical analyst Gary Anderson detailed on Friday.
Vettel would have walked the race had his alternator not failed on lap 34 and the pace shown by Red Bull this weekend will have set alarm bells ringing in Maranello and McLaren's factory in Woking.
At McLaren, though, they have other things to worry about after yet another pit-stop problem for Hamilton.
This time it was a failure of one of the new Ferrari-style angled jacks the team designed as part of a wholesale restructure of their pit-stop operation following problems in Malaysia, China and Bahrain earlier this year.
It lost Hamilton a place to Alonso when the leaders pitted during the mid-race safety-car period - and that of course would have meant he was leading following the retirements of Vettel and Lotus's Grosjean.
Given the tyre problems Hamilton found himself in during the closing laps, it seems unlikely that he would have been able to hold off Alonso for the victory, but it would have meant he was clear of Pastor Maldonado, and therefore the incident that took him out of the race, for which Hamilton was blameless.
Interestingly, if you look back at how many points Hamilton had lost to various operational issues at McLaren this year before Valencia, it was 27 - exactly the same number as Alonso.
Add the 18 or 15 he would have got for either second or third place in Valencia (depending on whether Kimi Raikkonen would have caught him) and that is more than 40.
After Valencia, he is now 23 points behind Alonso. The McLaren has been on balance the fastest car this year, but Ferrari's form is getting better and better and, after Valencia, Red Bull look more formidable than at any time this year.
There are still 12 races to go in an already extraordinary season that clearly has many more twists and turns to come. But Hamilton should be comfortably leading the championship. Have McLaren already thrown it away?
Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/andrewbenson/2012/06/alonso.html
Karl Gunther Bechem Jean Behra Derek Bell Stefan Bellof Paul Belmondo Tom Belso
BMW Motorrad is the motorcycle division of the German automaker and a few days ago they have introduced in London a near-production version of the C Evolution. 
David Horton Alois Huber Klaus Huber Brett Hudson Keith Huewen Jaroslav Huleö
The remarkable story of Fernando Alonso and Ferrari's incredible season continued at the German Grand Prix as the Spaniard became the first man to win three races in 2012 and moved into an imposing lead in the world championship.
Those three victories have all been very different, but equally impressive. And each has demonstrated specific aspects of the formidable army of Alonso's talents.
In Malaysia in the second race of the season, at a time when the Ferrari was not competitive in the dry, he grabbed the opportunity provided by rain to take a most unexpected first win.
In Valencia last month, it was Alonso's opportunism and clinical overtaking abilities that were to the fore.
Other drivers may wonder how to stop Alonso's relentless drive to a third title. Photo: Getty
And in Germany on Sunday his victory was founded on his relentlessness, canniness and virtual imperviousness to pressure.
Ferrari, lest we forget, started the season with a car that was the best part of a second and a half off the pace. Their progress since then has been hugely impressive.
But vastly improved though the car is, it was not, as Alonso himself, his team boss Stefano Domenicali and Red Bull's Sebastian Vettel all pointed out after the race on Sunday, the fastest car in Germany.
Vettel's Red Bull - which finished second but was demoted to fifth for passing Jenson Button by going off the track - and the McLaren appeared to have a slight pace advantage over the Ferrari, given their ability to stay within a second of it for lap after lap.
But Alonso cleverly managed his race so he was always just out of reach of them when it mattered.
He pushed hard in the first sector every lap so he was always far enough ahead at the start of the DRS overtaking zone to ensure his pursuers were not quite close enough to try to pass him into the Turn 6 hairpin.
After that, he could afford to back off through the middle sector of the lap, taking the stress out of his tyres, before doing it all over again the next time around.
Managing the delicate Pirelli tyres in this way also meant he could push that bit harder in the laps immediately preceding his two pit stops and ensure he kept his lead through them.
Equally, he showed the presence of mind to realise when Lewis Hamilton unlapped himself on Vettel shortly before the second stops that if he could, unlike the Red Bull driver, keep Hamilton behind, it would give him a crucial advantage at the stop.
It was not quite "67 qualifying laps", as Domenicali described it after the race, but it was certainly a masterful demonstration of control and intelligence.
And there was no arguing with another of the Italian's post-race verdicts. "(Alonso) is at the peak of his personal performance, no doubt about it," Domenicali said.
It was the 30th victory of Alonso's career, and he is now only one behind Nigel Mansell in the all-time winners' list. The way he is driving, he will surely move ahead of the Englishman into fourth place behind Michael Schumacher, Alain Prost and Ayrton Senna before the end of the year.
At the halfway point of the season, Alonso now looks down on his pursuers in the championship from the lofty vantage point of a 34-point advantage.
That is not, as Red Bull team principal Christian Horner correctly pointed out in Germany, "insurmountable" with 10 races still to go and 250 points up for grabs. But catching him when he is driving as well as this will take some doing.
Alonso is clearly enjoying the situation, and is taking opportunities to rub his rivals' noses in it a little.
He is not the only driver to have been wound up by the index-finger salute Vettel employed every time he took one of his 11 wins and 15 pole positions on the way to the title last year.
So it was amusing to see Alonso do the same thing after he had beaten the German to pole position at Vettel's home race on Saturday.
The exchange between Alonso, Button and Vettel as they climbed out of their cars immediately after the race was also illuminating.
After standing on his Ferrari's nose to milk the applause, Alonso turned to Button and said: "You couldn't beat me?" He then pointed to Vettel and said: "He couldn't either."
All part of the game, but a little reminder to both men of what a formidable job Alonso is doing this season.
The race underlined how close the performance is between the top three teams this year.
Red Bull had a shaky start to the season by their standards - although to nowhere near the extent of Ferrari - but have had on balance the fastest car in the dry since the Bahrain Grand Prix back in April.
And while McLaren have had a shaky couple of races in Valencia and Silverstone, they showed potential race-winning pace in Germany following the introduction of a major upgrade.
Despite a car damaged when he suffered an early puncture on debris left from a first-corner shunt ironically involving Alonso's team-mate Felipe Massa, Hamilton was able to run with the leaders before his retirement with gearbox damage.
And Button impressively fought his way up to second place from sixth on the grid, closing a five-second gap on Alonso and Vettel once he was into third place.
This has not been Button's greatest season, as he would be the first to admit.
Germany was the first race at which he has outqualified Hamilton in 2012 and even that may well have been down to the different tyre strategies they ran in qualifying.
Nevertheless, he remains a world-class grand prix driver and Germany proved the folly of those who had written him off after his recent struggles.
And despite Alonso's lead in the championship, the season is finely poised.
Germany was a low-key race for Mark Webber, who was unhappy with his car on the harder of the two tyres but remains second in the championship. And Red Bull's two drivers clearly have the equipment to make life difficult for Alonso.
The McLaren drivers are determined to make something of their season still and Lotus are quick enough to cause the three big teams some serious concern.
Mercedes, meanwhile, have a bit of work to do to turn around their tendency to qualify reasonably well and then go backwards in the race.
"It's going to be a great, great season," said McLaren boss Martin Whitmarsh on Sunday. "It already has been a great season."
And the next instalment is already less than seven days away in Hungary next weekend.
Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/andrewbenson/2012/07/cool_canny_alonso_looks_diffic.html
Eric Hinton Harry Hinton Osamu Hiwatashi Gary Hocking Alex Hofmann Andreas Hofmann
Romeo Ferraris is developing a new tuning program for the BMW M5. 
Andreas Hofmann Neil Hodgson Hernan Holder Francis Hollebecq Toshihiko Honma John Hopkins
BMW Motorrad is the motorcycle division of the German automaker and a few days ago they have introduced in London a near-production version of the C Evolution. Richard Eierstedt Jimmy Ellis Jeff Emig Harry Everts Stefan Everts Jaroslav Falta
Seven different winners from the first seven grands prix, an intensely competitive and wide-open championship battle, unpredictable races. On the surface, all is well with Formula 1. Behind the scenes, though, there is ferment.
At its heart is the planned introduction in 2014 of new rules, including new, energy-efficient, turbo-charged engines. The debate about whether this is wise or even possible in the current global financial climate has the potential to tear Formula 1 apart.
The new engines are being pushed strongly by governing body the FIA and have the support of the key manufacturers in Formula 1. But there are fears they will be much more expensive than the current 2.4-litre V8s and that the teams - the engine manufacturers' customers to a large degree - will not be able to afford them.
The engines have a powerful enemy - F1 boss Bernie Ecclestone has been against them from the start. He describes the arguments behind adopting them - which can be read in detail here - as "PR" and thinks they should be dropped.
He lost the first battle - they were formally adopted last year as part of the 2014 technical regulations, which also feature major chassis changes - but is still fighting to kill them off.
In that context, the recent formation of a group representing the interests of the F1 circuits should be seen as a transparent attempt by Ecclestone to bring more weight to the argument to scrap the engines.
What has developed is a classic impasse.
Bernie Ecclestone is working away behind the scenes to stop the new engines. Photo: Getty
F1 is in theory committed to the new engines. Renault and Mercedes want them to happen, and Ferrari dismiss rumours they would prefer them to be dropped by saying they will happen. Whether independent Cosworth, which supplies lowly Marussia and HRT, will be able to afford to build one is unclear.
But the teams not directly supported by engine manufacturers have not yet been told how much the new engines will cost, and fear it will be much more than the five million euros they currently pay annually.
Meanwhile, Ecclestone is working away behind the scenes to stop them. He has got former Renault team boss Flavio Briatore to come up with a 'GP1' set of rules, which include - among other things - continuing with the current engines.
The threat, clearly, is that he will take the commercial rights holders and the circuits with him (and possibly many of the teams), giving the FIA the choice to drop the engines or lose the substance of its championship.
But if that happened, Renault, for one, would almost certainly drop F1, and so might well Mercedes. So who would supply the engines to the new championship? And it would take a brave team to join any breakaway series.
On the other hand, if the FIA presses ahead and the teams cannot afford the new engines - there are rumours they could be as much as four times the price of the current V8s - where will all the cars come from in the FIA F1 world championship?
As the chief executive of the Sauber team, Monisha Kaltenborn, puts it: "If we go back to the days when engines were so much more expensive, I wonder how many teams could afford that. And F1 with four teams wouldn't be very exciting."
The manufacturers, though, believe dropping the new engines would be a mistake - as would delaying them by a further year (their introduction was already pushed back from 2013 as part of negotiations last year).
For them - and particularly for Mercedes and Renault - the new small-capacity turbos with significant energy recovery systems are in line with the way the road-car business is going. Without them, there would be no justification for a continued involvement in F1.
Mercedes team principal Ross Brawn says: "We're committed to a new engine programme, it's progressing, we've been able to justify the budgets to our board and we don't want to see a deferment or a delay in that new engine.
"It sends a very bad message back if Formula 1 keeps changing its direction on things that are so fundamental, which need so much investment to make work. I think the new engine is very exciting."
Brawn adds that the future sustainability of the sport depends on moving with the times.
"We're going to be running around on two-thirds of the fuel that we're running on now with, we think, comparable power outputs," he says.
"We've got to change the engine at some stage. We will become irrelevant with the engine if we don't look to change.
"The world's changing and I think the new engine is a far more relevant engine for F1 for the future.
"If we're going to get new manufacturers into F1, which I think is a good thing, then why will they come in to build an antique V8 engine? They won't.
"They will only come in with this new engine, so we want to attract manufacturers back into F1 and this new engine is very important (in doing that)."
But the sustainability argument has a counter-point, as detailed by Marussia chief executive officer Graeme Lowdon.
"The teams do understand the direction the FIA is going with the new engines and people do generally support it," he says.
"We're happy to see technology go in that direction, but that has to be secondary to the sustainability of the sport."
The backdrop to that statement is that times are tough for all but the very biggest teams in F1. While the top four are all pretty much financially secure, there are concerns to one degree or another for the other eight.
The latest development in the saga came at last weekend's Canadian GP, when Mercedes vice-president of motorsport Norbert Haug said: "It's absolutely clear if you introduce a new engine that it will cost more in the beginning but I think we can achieve comparable spending over a five-year period and that has to be the target."
This was news to most customer teams - but even that might not be enough to end the argument. As Lowdon puts it: "The challenge for most businesses is cash-flow." In other words, many teams don't have the money to pay higher up-front costs, even if they come down later.
Talks are continuing behind the scenes, but as for what the solution to the conundrum might be, Lowdon voices the current situation best: "I have absolutely no idea."
Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/andrewbenson/2012/06/engine_dispute_threatens_f1_sc.html
Bob Anderson Conny Andersson Mario Andretti Michael Andretti Keith Andrews Elio de Angelis
Photos from the 2012 RedBud MX National ...
{yoogallery src=[/images/stories/raceresults/mx/2012/redbud-6] width=[120] height=[100] title=[2012 RedBud MX - Round 6] load_lightbox=[1] thumb=[default]}
Source: http://www.supercross.com/features/photos-red-bud-mx-2012
Philippe Alliot Cliff Allison Fernando Alonso Giovanna Amati George Amick Red Amick
The 2013 Spark with automatic gearbox can return 32 mpg in the combined cycle. 
John Hartle Wil Hartog Gary Haslam Leon Haslam Ron Haslam Bjorn Hasli
Feld Motor sports, promoter of the Monster Energy Supercross Series in the USA, has released Episode 1 of SX Ed, with their Miss Supercross, Dianna Dahlgren. The video is below. Class is in!
Dianna Dahlgren - teacher
Source: http://www.supercross.com/news/class-in-in-sx-ed-with-miss-supercross-dianna-dahlgren-episode-1
Ryan Dungey Vic Eastwood Daryl Ecklund Erik Eggens Richard Eierstedt Jimmy Ellis
I must confess, at the start of the year I wasn't sure what to expect from Formula 1 in 2012. The question for me was: how could a sport that has enthralled us so much in recent seasons deliver again - while at the same time hold its own in a year so packed with stunning sporting spectacles?
We've had the European Football Championship, now followed swiftly by Wimbledon and then almost immediately the London Olympics will be upon us. It's a veritable feast for those sports lovers keen to sit down on the sofa in June and not get up again until late August (if I wasn't working I'd be one of them!).
Among such sporting riches I wondered just how F1 would make its voice heard. Well, here we are, almost at the midway point of the season and it seems I needn't have worried.
Due to the fact that my brain has probably only a hundredth of the power of Adrian Newey's and works at roughly a tenth of the speed of Sebastian Vettel's, there are many things I still can't work out about this sport. One of them: just how does it manage to keep on delivering storylines that even Brookside in its heyday would have been proud of?!
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Since the BBC team and I got involved it's been one drama after another. In 2009 alone we had the Brawn GP 'phoenix-from-the-flames' act, Felipe Massa's nasty accident in Hungary and then Jenson keeping us all guessing until we got to Brazil.
2010 then delivered arguably the most competitive season the sport has ever seen with five drivers in with a shout of the title, and the least fancied of the lot eventually winning it.
Meanwhile, last year was all about the record-breaking domination of our back-to-back champion, as Seb found his feet in the sport - and his place in the history books - with the most amazing performances week after week that all of us, bar Mark Webber, just watched in awe.
And then 2012 arrived. The year of the Union Flag. The year we all celebrate being British, and the Queen being on the throne almost as long as this sport has existed. The year that Wayne Rooney and England would chase glory in the east of Europe, while the likes of Chris Hoy and Usain Bolt would do the same in the east of London.
And among the flotillas, the flypast and the flag waving, Formula 1's job was to remind the British public that if you want to celebrate Britain, then celebrate this sport!
In an age of low profits and high anxiety, it's only natural that we lean on the things we know and trust, and we should include Formula 1 in that bracket. To most of us, it's always been here.
We should not only celebrate it because it employs thousands and contributes millions to the British economy each year. We shouldn't just feel pride because eight of the current teams are based on these shores, or that this was the country where Formula 1 actually began - but because in times like this, what we need is a bit of escapism, something to entertain us. And this sport is currently doing both.
And best of all, this weekend it's the British Grand Prix!
I have incredibly fond memories of this race, and we always try to find a way on the show to tell the story of you, the F1 fans, who attend in your thousands. And whether it's chants of 'BBC' from the grandstand or 'Eddie, Eddie, Eddie' as the crowds gather round us in our pre-show build-up, we appreciate the support you've shown us over the years.
Having arrived on a three-man tandem bike and hovered overhead in a helicopter in the past, we've decided on a quintessentially British, extrovert way of arriving for this year's grand prix. If you're there on the Thursday you won't miss us! I suggest that sometime late-morning you look to the skies and give us a wave... that's all I'm saying.
However, it's the drivers who will again provide the real entertainment this year. And after the British fans braved the rain of 2011 and despite there being no British winner since 2008, I truly hope that this year is a race to remember. As well as a grand prix that lives up to the high standards this season has set.
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If Valencia is anything to go by then it looks like Silverstone will be a cracker. We won't have the sweltering conditions that some races have given us, but with another mixed-up grid full of mixed-up strategies, once again I hope it will have us guessing until the very end.
And we're also at a crucial stage of the season as far as the title is concerned. Can Fernando Alonso now string some success together and build a championship lead? Meanwhile Mark Webber can really show what consistency can do. If Lotus really harbour title aspirations then now is the time to start turning pace into wins, and what kind of form will Michael be in now he's bagged his first podium since 2006?
And that leaves the three lions. Paul Di Resta continues to show flashes of brilliance and stunning raw speed - surely it's just a matter of time until he makes a move to a big team. But he's also got the likes of Sergio Perez and Romain Grosjean battling for the crown of top rookie.
Is Jenson going to be cut adrift after struggling on Saturdays and having to fight for scraps in recent races? And as for Lewis, he may well arrive at Silverstone like a bear with a sore head after the way his Valencia race ended, but I predict he will make it British Grand Prix win number two on Sunday.
So, if you can't make it to the race then don't take down your Jubilee bunting and put the fizz back under the stairs just yet. Chill a bottle, settle down in front of the TV and watch a British love affair unfold that is every bit as special as we've seen so far this summer.
And if you are coming to the race, then make sure you bring that Union Flag. This feels like a year that we've fallen in love with being British again, so as the world tunes in to see what Northamptonshire has to offer on Sunday, let's help make it a race to remember.
And after the race, head to Luffield for the grand prix party, as we're hosting the F1 Forum live on stage and we want you to be part of the show.
Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/jakehumphrey/2012/07/lets_celebrate_a_great_british.html
Jamie Dobb Gert van Doorn John Dowd John Draper Doug Dubach Ryan Dungey
Filed under: Motorsports, Performance, Truck, Off-Road
Car and Driver dissects the physics of monster trucks originally appeared on Autoblog on Sat, 28 Jul 2012 08:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Permalink | Email this | CommentsSource: http://www.autoblog.com/2012/07/28/car-and-driver-dissects-the-physics-of-monster-trucks/
Karl Hoppe David Horton Alois Huber Klaus Huber Brett Hudson Keith Huewen
The first purported pictures of the 2013 Lexus LS have leaked to the web, ahead of its debut on July 30th. 
Source: http://feeds.worldcarfans.com/~r/worldcarfans/Jxfz/~3/Xkfi-HWv8C8/2013-lexus-ls-leaked
Bruno Kneub¸hler Randy Krummenacher Hiroaki Kuzuhara Z Line Designs Toyota Parker Kligerman Trevor Bayne
It's not often Fernando Alonso is overcome with emotion, but he only just managed to hold it together as he stood on the podium after a quite stunning victory in the European Grand Prix.
His voice had already cracked as he giggled his delight on the team radio on his slowing-down lap - and in the pits Ferrari team boss Stefano Domenicali was in the same state as he praised a "fantastic" drive by the Spaniard.
But listening to the Spanish and Italian national anthems, the magnitude of the moment almost got the better of Alonso. He choked a bit, grinned, almost cried, gritted his teeth and then collected himself.
No wonder he was so emotional - in the previous half an hour or so, it had all come together to create a perfect weekend for him.
Fernando Alonso (centre) celebrates winning the European GP with second place Kimi Raikkonen (left) and third place Michael Schumacher (right). Photo: Getty
Alonso has driven some outstanding races in his career - he is generally regarded within F1 as the finest driver in the world - but this one has to be right up there with the very best.
Fighting up from 11th place on the grid, he pulled off some quite brilliant overtaking moves to make his way up into contention, the opportunism and skill never better than when he separated Lotus's Romain Grosjean from second place immediately after a restart following a safety car period.
That move meant Alonso inherited the lead when Sebastian Vettel's dominant Red Bull retired further around the same lap. Then, as he completed a spectacular victory, his day was made perfect when the man he regards as his main title rival, Lewis Hamilton, retired with two laps to go.
Both his main rivals out of the race, a momentous win in his home grand prix and less than 24 hours after Spain's football team made it into the semi-finals of Euro 2012. No wonder he was close to tears.
Of course, luck was involved in Alonso's win. He was not going to beat Vettel before the German's retirement - no one was - and he would not have been in a position to challenge Grosjean at the re-start had it not been for yet another pit-stop problem for McLaren.
But Alonso put himself in the position to gain from others' misfortune, and all the other positions he gained he worked for and won in a style befitting one of the greatest racing drivers the world has seen.
Ferrari's superbly quick pit crew played a part, too - one rival engineer said this weekend that they had moved the goalposts for pit stops this year.
But the fact remains that Alonso would not have had to do what he did had Ferrari's strategists not made the error that left him down in 11th on the grid - a decision for which the driver must share some blame.
Ferrari failed to realise that Alonso would need to fit a second set of the 'soft' tyres in second qualifying to be sure of progressing into the top 10 shoot-out.
Lotus had also planned to follow Ferrari's strategy of running a set of 'medium' tyres in Q2 followed by a set of 'softs'.
But when the English team saw how close it was in Q1, they realised they could not afford to take the risk, and switched to running two sets of 'softs' in Q2 and only one in the top 10 shoot-out.
It's impossible to know where Alonso would have ended up on the grid had he made it through.
Fortunately for Ferrari, their blushes were spared by his stellar performance on Sunday - on a track where it had previously been almost impossible to overtake but which came alive this year with the combination of degrading tyres and a DRS overtaking zone judged exactly right.
Ferrari took a fair bit of stick for the decision - and rightly so. It would be dangerous of them not to learn from it for this is not the first time this season that their strategy has been found wanting.
Alonso might have won in Barcelona had Ferrari not allowed Williams to get Pastor Maldonado ahead of him by making their second stop earlier.
As Alonso admitted himself, a win was also on the cards in Monaco had Ferrari reacted more quickly to his blistering pace on his in-lap and left him out to do a couple more.
And in Canada, where he fell back to fifth, he should have finished at least second - and could possibly have won - but the team failed to react to his tyres losing grip dramatically in the closing stages.
Had Ferrari got those calls right, Alonso could have been heading into the Valencia weekend on the back of two wins and a second place, rather than a second, a third and a fifth.
That's 27 points thrown away even before the error in qualifying this weekend. In a season as close as this, even if Alonso wins the title it is unlikely to be by that much.
In each case, the error has been a result of apparently not being reactive enough - being either too fixed on a specific, pre-ordained strategy, and/or too focused on one specific rival and not looking at the bigger picture.
That was exactly what happened in Abu Dhabi in 2010, when another strategy error handed the title on a plate to Vettel.
Ferrari have now got back many of those points thanks to the problems suffered by Vettel and Hamilton.
Despite Vettel's retirement, the Red Bull showed frightening pace in Valencia following the introduction of a major upgrade, as BBC F1 technical analyst Gary Anderson detailed on Friday.
Vettel would have walked the race had his alternator not failed on lap 34 and the pace shown by Red Bull this weekend will have set alarm bells ringing in Maranello and McLaren's factory in Woking.
At McLaren, though, they have other things to worry about after yet another pit-stop problem for Hamilton.
This time it was a failure of one of the new Ferrari-style angled jacks the team designed as part of a wholesale restructure of their pit-stop operation following problems in Malaysia, China and Bahrain earlier this year.
It lost Hamilton a place to Alonso when the leaders pitted during the mid-race safety-car period - and that of course would have meant he was leading following the retirements of Vettel and Lotus's Grosjean.
Given the tyre problems Hamilton found himself in during the closing laps, it seems unlikely that he would have been able to hold off Alonso for the victory, but it would have meant he was clear of Pastor Maldonado, and therefore the incident that took him out of the race, for which Hamilton was blameless.
Interestingly, if you look back at how many points Hamilton had lost to various operational issues at McLaren this year before Valencia, it was 27 - exactly the same number as Alonso.
Add the 18 or 15 he would have got for either second or third place in Valencia (depending on whether Kimi Raikkonen would have caught him) and that is more than 40.
After Valencia, he is now 23 points behind Alonso. The McLaren has been on balance the fastest car this year, but Ferrari's form is getting better and better and, after Valencia, Red Bull look more formidable than at any time this year.
There are still 12 races to go in an already extraordinary season that clearly has many more twists and turns to come. But Hamilton should be comfortably leading the championship. Have McLaren already thrown it away?
Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/andrewbenson/2012/06/alonso.html
Jean Behra Derek Bell Stefan Bellof Paul Belmondo Tom Belso Antonio Cairoli
While at the Summer 2012 X Games, performing TV responsibilities for ESPN, and doing requisite media, Jeremy McGrath announced, that thanks in great part to the efforts of Be The Match and its Registry, his wife Kim has found a marrow donor.
In addition - Jeremy will donate video game proceeds to BeTheMatch.org
Surviving breast cancer two years ago, in May of this year, Kim McGrath was diagnosed with Leukemia. Her treatment included immediate chemotherapy and a bone marrow transplant.
Jeremy and Kim both moved into action: Kim - undergoing chemo and enduring month long hospital stays. Jeremy - spearheading close to 40 marrow drives and fundraisers.
John Draper Doug Dubach Ryan Dungey Vic Eastwood Daryl Ecklund Erik Eggens
It's not often Fernando Alonso is overcome with emotion, but he only just managed to hold it together as he stood on the podium after a quite stunning victory in the European Grand Prix.
His voice had already cracked as he giggled his delight on the team radio on his slowing-down lap - and in the pits Ferrari team boss Stefano Domenicali was in the same state as he praised a "fantastic" drive by the Spaniard.
But listening to the Spanish and Italian national anthems, the magnitude of the moment almost got the better of Alonso. He choked a bit, grinned, almost cried, gritted his teeth and then collected himself.
No wonder he was so emotional - in the previous half an hour or so, it had all come together to create a perfect weekend for him.
Fernando Alonso (centre) celebrates winning the European GP with second place Kimi Raikkonen (left) and third place Michael Schumacher (right). Photo: Getty
Alonso has driven some outstanding races in his career - he is generally regarded within F1 as the finest driver in the world - but this one has to be right up there with the very best.
Fighting up from 11th place on the grid, he pulled off some quite brilliant overtaking moves to make his way up into contention, the opportunism and skill never better than when he separated Lotus's Romain Grosjean from second place immediately after a restart following a safety car period.
That move meant Alonso inherited the lead when Sebastian Vettel's dominant Red Bull retired further around the same lap. Then, as he completed a spectacular victory, his day was made perfect when the man he regards as his main title rival, Lewis Hamilton, retired with two laps to go.
Both his main rivals out of the race, a momentous win in his home grand prix and less than 24 hours after Spain's football team made it into the semi-finals of Euro 2012. No wonder he was close to tears.
Of course, luck was involved in Alonso's win. He was not going to beat Vettel before the German's retirement - no one was - and he would not have been in a position to challenge Grosjean at the re-start had it not been for yet another pit-stop problem for McLaren.
But Alonso put himself in the position to gain from others' misfortune, and all the other positions he gained he worked for and won in a style befitting one of the greatest racing drivers the world has seen.
Ferrari's superbly quick pit crew played a part, too - one rival engineer said this weekend that they had moved the goalposts for pit stops this year.
But the fact remains that Alonso would not have had to do what he did had Ferrari's strategists not made the error that left him down in 11th on the grid - a decision for which the driver must share some blame.
Ferrari failed to realise that Alonso would need to fit a second set of the 'soft' tyres in second qualifying to be sure of progressing into the top 10 shoot-out.
Lotus had also planned to follow Ferrari's strategy of running a set of 'medium' tyres in Q2 followed by a set of 'softs'.
But when the English team saw how close it was in Q1, they realised they could not afford to take the risk, and switched to running two sets of 'softs' in Q2 and only one in the top 10 shoot-out.
It's impossible to know where Alonso would have ended up on the grid had he made it through.
Fortunately for Ferrari, their blushes were spared by his stellar performance on Sunday - on a track where it had previously been almost impossible to overtake but which came alive this year with the combination of degrading tyres and a DRS overtaking zone judged exactly right.
Ferrari took a fair bit of stick for the decision - and rightly so. It would be dangerous of them not to learn from it for this is not the first time this season that their strategy has been found wanting.
Alonso might have won in Barcelona had Ferrari not allowed Williams to get Pastor Maldonado ahead of him by making their second stop earlier.
As Alonso admitted himself, a win was also on the cards in Monaco had Ferrari reacted more quickly to his blistering pace on his in-lap and left him out to do a couple more.
And in Canada, where he fell back to fifth, he should have finished at least second - and could possibly have won - but the team failed to react to his tyres losing grip dramatically in the closing stages.
Had Ferrari got those calls right, Alonso could have been heading into the Valencia weekend on the back of two wins and a second place, rather than a second, a third and a fifth.
That's 27 points thrown away even before the error in qualifying this weekend. In a season as close as this, even if Alonso wins the title it is unlikely to be by that much.
In each case, the error has been a result of apparently not being reactive enough - being either too fixed on a specific, pre-ordained strategy, and/or too focused on one specific rival and not looking at the bigger picture.
That was exactly what happened in Abu Dhabi in 2010, when another strategy error handed the title on a plate to Vettel.
Ferrari have now got back many of those points thanks to the problems suffered by Vettel and Hamilton.
Despite Vettel's retirement, the Red Bull showed frightening pace in Valencia following the introduction of a major upgrade, as BBC F1 technical analyst Gary Anderson detailed on Friday.
Vettel would have walked the race had his alternator not failed on lap 34 and the pace shown by Red Bull this weekend will have set alarm bells ringing in Maranello and McLaren's factory in Woking.
At McLaren, though, they have other things to worry about after yet another pit-stop problem for Hamilton.
This time it was a failure of one of the new Ferrari-style angled jacks the team designed as part of a wholesale restructure of their pit-stop operation following problems in Malaysia, China and Bahrain earlier this year.
It lost Hamilton a place to Alonso when the leaders pitted during the mid-race safety-car period - and that of course would have meant he was leading following the retirements of Vettel and Lotus's Grosjean.
Given the tyre problems Hamilton found himself in during the closing laps, it seems unlikely that he would have been able to hold off Alonso for the victory, but it would have meant he was clear of Pastor Maldonado, and therefore the incident that took him out of the race, for which Hamilton was blameless.
Interestingly, if you look back at how many points Hamilton had lost to various operational issues at McLaren this year before Valencia, it was 27 - exactly the same number as Alonso.
Add the 18 or 15 he would have got for either second or third place in Valencia (depending on whether Kimi Raikkonen would have caught him) and that is more than 40.
After Valencia, he is now 23 points behind Alonso. The McLaren has been on balance the fastest car this year, but Ferrari's form is getting better and better and, after Valencia, Red Bull look more formidable than at any time this year.
There are still 12 races to go in an already extraordinary season that clearly has many more twists and turns to come. But Hamilton should be comfortably leading the championship. Have McLaren already thrown it away?
Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/andrewbenson/2012/06/alonso.html
Ryan Dungey Vic Eastwood Daryl Ecklund Erik Eggens Richard Eierstedt Jimmy Ellis
Filed under: Car Buying, Europe, Japan, Toyota
Toyota sales rebound to reclaim spot as world's largest automaker originally appeared on Autoblog on Fri, 27 Jul 2012 18:31:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Permalink | Email this | CommentsSource: http://www.autoblog.com/2012/07/27/toyota-sales-rebound-to-reclaim-spot-as-worlds-largest-automake/
Tetsuya Harada John Hartle Wil Hartog Gary Haslam Leon Haslam Ron Haslam
Unadilla is one of the most historic motocross tracks on the planet. Located in New Berlin, New York, it has hosted MX GPs, Nationals, Trans-AMA event, and in 1987 the prestigious Motocross of Nations - the first time ever held in the USA. It's like the 'mecca' of American Motocross.
We were looking at some photos from last year's MX season. And noticed these from Unadilla 2011. Below are a few photos from the 2011 Lucas Oil AMA Pro Motocross race at Unadilla.
Source: http://www.supercross.com/features/photos-unadilla-mx-2011
Tony DiStefano Jamie Dobb Gert van Doorn John Dowd John Draper Doug Dubach
Source: http://www.zimbio.com/MotoGP/articles/HnAjEfrQi-K/Jorge+Lorenzo+talked+Ben+Spies+Decision+Leave
Elio de Angelis Marco Apicella M·rio de Ara˙jo Cabral Frank Armi Chuck Arnold Rene Arnoux
