This Week in Auto Racing April 1 - 3

Source: http://www.newsobserver.com/2011/03/29/1090926/this-week-in-auto-racing-april.html

Marco Apicella M·rio de Ara˙jo Cabral Frank Armi Chuck Arnold Rene Arnoux Peter Arundell

Report: Toyota Yaris plant to be shuttered for at least another month

Filed under: Plants/Manufacturing, Lexus, Toyota

Production issues in Japan continue three weeks after the 9.0 magnitude earthquake and tsunami devastated the island nation. Major Japanese automakers have consistently pushed back plant start-up times and Toyota is no different, with a current forecast of an April 11 or April 14 re-boot. And that's best-case scenario. The automaker said in a statement Tuesday that it was looking into supply issues, adding "depending on vehicle type, there may be a significant impact on our production capabilities."

Automotive News reports that the longest wait time could be for Toyota's Miyagi assembly plant, which makes the Yaris subcompact. Sources tell AN that the plant will likely be down for at least a month, as ruptured gas lines in the facility link to a heavily damaged natural gas plant in the quake-devastated region of Sendai. The automaker is said to be looking at other options to power the otherwise repaired facility. The prolonged shutdown at the Miyagi plant could ultimately affect Toyota's U.S. supply of Yaris models, which only come from that plant.

One factory that has been revitalized is the plant that makes the Prius, Lexus CT 200h and Lexus HS250h. But a source apparently informed AN that a Toyota purchasing executive admits that the facility is only running at half capacity.

Right now, the situation in Japan hasn't had much affect on U.S. vehicle availability, but a prolonged shutdown of supplier plants could be devastating. IHS Global Insight estimates that 30 percent of the world's global auto production could be lost if Japan plants remain closed for six weeks or more.

[Source: Automotive News - sub. req.]

Report: Toyota Yaris plant to be shuttered for at least another month originally appeared on Autoblog on Wed, 30 Mar 2011 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://www.autoblog.com/2011/03/30/report-toyota-yaris-plant-to-but-shuttered-for-at-least-another/

Alex Hofmann Andreas Hofmann Neil Hodgson Hernan Holder Francis Hollebecq Toshihiko Honma

2012 BMW M5 prototype - 30 minutes of raw footage [video]

In addition to some soothing static shots there are some nice driving scenes taken from far away as well as close-up mounted shots.

Source: http://feeds.worldcarfans.com/~r/worldcarfans/Jxfz/~3/z8nRaQJ9IwQ/2012-bmw-m5-prototype---30-minutes-of-raw-footage-video

Clint Bowyer Zaxby s Chevrolet Paul Menard Richmond Menards Ford Kyle Busch Toyota Kimmy Z Line Designs Toyota

Five Things to Look For at the Toronto Supercross

Round 12 of Monster Energy AMA Supercross Series, an FIM World Championship, is set to get underway Saturday in Toronto. Last weekend's race in Jacksonville was run under not just a full moon, but a "super" moon. It was closest the moon had been to the earth in nearly 20 years.

And the night's activities on the track showed it! The top two in the series point standings at the start of the day had disastrous nights! Series points leader Ryan Villopoto didn't even qualify for the Main Event, because of two crashes in the LCQ. And number two in points at the time, James Stewart's Main Event lasted about 10 seconds until a crash, of which he did not re-enter the race.

That left the door wide open for other title contenders to put themselves in a prime position.

The 250 East Supercross Lites class was not exempt from the lunacy either. Monster Energy/Pro Circuit/Kawasaki's Blake Baggett, who stood second in points behind GEICO Honda's Justin Barcia, failed to qualify for the East Main Event. What a season 2011 has been! After all the excitement to this point, what more can we possibly expect in Toronto?

Here are a few things I see going down at Saturday's Supercross:

Source: http://www.supercross.com/features/five-things-to-look-for-at-the-toronto-supercross

Roger De Coster Ken De Dycker Yves Demaria Gilbert De Roover Clement Desalle John DeSoto

F1 teams battle over cost-cutting

The first race of the 2011 season is still two months away, but the fight for a competitive advantage in Formula 1 is still raging away behind the scenes.

As their engineers put the finishing touches to their new cars in time for the start of pre-season testing next month, team bosses are trying to thrash out a new cost-saving agreement. And it's getting a bit nasty.

Rivals - almost without exception, I'm told - believe Red Bull exceeded en route to winning the world title last year the limitations laid out in the document that defines how teams commit their budgets. They also claim that Red Bull are blocking a new version of the so-called Resource Restriction Agreement to take the sport through to 2017, where the current one runs only to 2012.

One insider at a rival team said Red Bull had been "flouting" the RRA. This is quite a serious accusation, as it effectively claims Red Bull either spent longer developing the aerodynamics of their car, employed more staff, or spent more money - or all three - than they were allowed to. In other words, they had an unfair advantage.

Red Bull deny outright that they overspent in 2010, and insist they are objecting to the revised agreement only because it is flawed in its current form and they want to ensure it is "fair and equitable". More of which in a moment.

"We've worked in accordance with the RRA limits since they were introduced," Red Bull team principal Christian Horner told BBC Sport. "With tremendous hard work and internal efficiencies, we believe we've absolutely adhered to it.

"Red Bull has committed its budgets wisely and it's obviously surprising that people will feel that way, but it's inevitable, I guess, when you're at the front and winning races."

No one will go on the record to confirm their suspicions about Red Bull, but Virgin Racing chief executive officer Graeme Lowdon, while making it clear he does not know about Red Bull's budget, says: "On something as fundamental as this, on something that's there to make the whole business you're in sustainable, if someone was to even breach the spirit of that, then that's extremely disappointing.

"I cannot see how anyone can level a criticism at an RRA. If it made a worse show, or watered it down, then there would be a case to answer. But it doesn't so it's very disappointing if teams ignore something as fundamental as this."

In many ways, this financial dispute echoes the technical rows that enveloped Red Bull in 2010.

Unable to explain or understand how the RB6 car was so fast, rivals first accused Red Bull of having an illegal ride-height control system, and then of an overly flexible front wing. Red Bull insisted the car was completely legal, and the FIA, F1's governing body, never found otherwise.

Horner finds Red Bull in the middle of another controversy about 2010. Photo: Getty

"We expect other teams to potentially challenge [whether we have over-spent]," Horner says, "as they have done on front wings and ride heights and everything else in the course of last year. But we don't have any issue.

"Red Bull probably has the third or fourth biggest budget in F1. We spent prudently and have achieved great efficiency within the factory, and we have to top that in 2011."

This row has come up in the context of negotiations over revising ways of controlling F1's costs. Keeping a lid on budgets is, along with ensuring the racing remains as good as possible, one of the central themes for F1 stake-holders at the moment, as the sport's bosses seek to ensure it remains both compelling for its audience and affordable for its competitors in a difficult economic climate.

The RRA is the document the teams drew up in 2009 to control costs in F1. It defines a series of limitations on resources, getting stricter through 2010, 2011 and 2012, and the penalties for exceeding them. But it was always meant as a stepping-stone to a longer agreement.

In the current agreement, there is a sliding scale of penalties covering the following main areas of resource commitment:

• Aerodynamic development, measured in wind-tunnel hours or computational fluid dynamics data, with the more you do of one, up to a given limit, meaning the less you can do of the other;
• Total staff numbers, from 350 in 2010 down to 280 in 2011, and total external spend, from 40m Euros in 2010, down to 20m Euros in 2011, with the more you commit to one, the less you can spend on the other.

The penalties were based on a sliding scale. For example, a breach of up to 5% is punished by having that same amount taken off your resource allocation for the next year; a breach of 5-10% means having 1.1 times that amount taken off; and so on.

The new document - the fundamentals of which were largely agreed at a meeting at the Singapore Grand Prix last September - changes that.

One team principal, who did not wish to be identified, said that the new RRA relaxes the restrictions on resources - teams can spend a bit more money and employ a few more staff - and in return the policing is stricter, both in terms of how teams' spending is analysed and the penalties for exceeding the limits.

But the detail is proving problematic, with Red Bull in particular unhappy about the new document as it stands.

Horner says his objections are rooted in ensuring the new RRA, which would run until 2017, does what it is intended to do.

"The RRA is a positive thing for F1," he says. "I think a solution can be found for the outstanding issues, it just needs some sensible discussion between the teams, because the thought of an unrestricted spend in F1 is unpalatable for all the teams.

"So it is a matter of achieving transparency and a fair and equitable system between all independent and manufacturer-owned teams so that no party is at an advantage or disadvantage."

"The resource restriction needs to be sorted quite quickly because at the moment it is unclear what rules we are working to in 2011 in many respects, so it's important a solution is found and I think one will be found."

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/andrewbenson/2011/01/f1_teams_battle_over_cost-cutt.html

Robert Kubica Kurt Kuhnke Masami Kuwashima Robert La Caze Jacques Laffite Franck Lagorce

Watch Superbike World Championships Donington Park 2011 live Streaming Online on PC

Enjoy Donington Park Online tv link of Superbike World Championships.This superspeed racing event will be held at Donington Park, England. There's a great excitation waiting for the viewers because of the previous highly temparing competition. If your channels can't tune you with this event then don't be upset; just click here and we will provide you a quality software with 100%  guarantee of best service to Watch all the events this season. Enjoy with the Superbike World Championships 2011 live score, preview, recaps and highlights here live streaming Superbike World Championships 2011 live tv sports event. So, don't keep yourself awaited any longer, just scrool down and click the link below to watch Donington Park,England live stream online.

Superbike World Championships Donington Park

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Tournament Info:
Event: Donington Park,England
Duration: 25-27 March,2011
Track: Donington Park,Great Britain
circuit length: 4023 m
Free Practice: 12:45 (GMT),Friday, March 25
Qualifying Practice: 10:45 (GMT), Saturday, March 26
Final race: 15:30(GMT), Sunday, March 27
Previous Winner: Ben Spies

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Schedule OF 2011 Superbike World Championships Donington Park

Friday 25-03-2011

Free Practice: 12:45

Qualifying Practice: 15:45

Saturday 26-03-2011

Qualifying Practice: 10:45

Free Practice: 13:50

Superrole(1): 15:00

Superrole(2): 15:21

Superrole(3): 15:40

Sunday 27-03-2011

Warm Up: 09:20

Race(1): 12:00

Race(2): 15:30

*All times are given in GMT format
* Schedule is subject to change

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So, don't miss this event Watch and enjoy the 2011 Donington Park live stream online broadcast of live tv channel and get further information and you will Watch all of the events.

Source: http://www.zimbio.com/MotoGP/articles/OTPrehp5MEp/Watch+Superbike+World+Championships+Donington

Kurt Ahrens Jr Christijan Albers Michele Alboreto Jean Alesi Jaime Alguersuari Philippe Alliot

Cole Seely Signs Multi-Year Deal with Troy Lee Designs / Lucas Oil / Honda

Cole Seely dropped into the office today to ink his new contract with the Troy Lee Designs / Lucas Oil / Honda race team.

Team Manager Tyler Keefe said:

"We're stoked. We've got something special going on here and we wanted to wrap Cole up for the rest of his Lites career. He's an awesome kid. He got us our first win at Dodger Stadium and we want to see more of that. Now that he's signed on through 2013, we'll have that opportunity."

Source: http://www.supercross.com/news/cole-seely-signs-multi-year-deal-with-troy-lee-designslucas-oilhonda

Werner Haas Silvio Habat Larbi Habbiche Ron Hackett Gerhard Haeberle Bernard Haenggeli