New Year's resolution: Learn to brake better

To paraphrase that woman, you can never brake too late or too hard...
Well, I guess you could brake too hard but never mind, point is, we all can all go in deeper and later as demonstrated below by Alex Buncombe. Alex is driving a Nissan GTR GT3 at Donnington in the final round of the 2012 British GT Championship.



I know what you're thinking, it's a GTR, everyone's a hero in a GTR ( at least on the internet!). Buncombe is no slouch in extremely analog machines.



( the top video I found on Sean Johnston's twitter feed.

Meanwhile at Daytona...

Private testing for Park Place Motorsports shot by Halston Pitman and Jake Galstad / MotorSportMedia.  

Porsche factory driver  Patrick Long will be driving the Park Place Motorsports GT3 Cup  along with our old friend Spencer Pumpelly in the 2013 Rolex 24.

Park Place (the ex- Horton Autosport team) will be battling a healthy field of TRG, Momo-NGT, Magnus and Alex Job Porsches as well as Audi R8s and Ferrari 458 Grand-Am.

Add a Corvette ZR1, a Viper, a Camaro and a Mazda RX8  to the mix and top with the best GT drivers in the world, from Edoardo Mortara to Papis, Faulkner, Bleekemolen, Lieb, Lally, Keen...just to name a very few, GT Class should be more exciting then ever at the Florida classic coming up at the end of January.

Here is a night in car from Dion Von Moltke's Audi R8

Is this the best sounding car in the world?

I don't know about that but certainly has to be in the top handful of amazing engine sounds. Makes Merc 6.3's sound kind of tame.  
Another cool Kidston clip for us to enjoy. How about those spring loaded twin gas tank fillers?

Of course this Aston Marting V8 Vantage 6.3 is a car from an era before 700HP became "the new 400HP" and it was, at the time, a 0-60 in 5.3 seconds "supercar" something a stock BMW 1 series could easily top now.  Ah but the sound...the leather...the popping on the overrun...The six speed!

Wonder if Swiss cops were moved into not giving these guys a ticket like they do everyone else!



Too much music in that clip?  check out the raw sound after the jump

Thank you everyone for tuning in to Axis for another year.     Keep the shiny side up, the sticky side down and drive hard in 2013!  

Cheers!

(Alex Cremascoli and Max Colnago made that awesome picture!)

Driving the world's most valuable car, the Mercedes 300 SLR Coupe

Rudolf Uhlenhaut with the 300 SRL Coupe

If you have a fabulous collection of classic cars but you need to find that one car that is just impossible to find, something that might make your friends GTO look plain, chance are you might ring Simon Kidston.

Why? Because he's the kind of person so connected in the "priceless rolling sculpture" trade that the Mercedes Museum calls up and offers a drive in what is most likely the world's most valuable car. I say most likely because Mercedes is certainly never going to sell this one, one of just two in existence.

This race car was never raced, it was supposed to compete in the 1956 season but Mercedes withdrew from competition ofter the Le Mans disaster of 1955. The last time Mercedes ever allowed anyone outside of the company to drive the 300 SLR Coupe was in 1954 when they allowed a Swiss car magazine to drive it at 4 am on the autobahn. At the time the magazine, Automobil Revue recorded a top speed of just over 176 mph.

The Mercedes 300 SLR "Uhlenhaut" Coupe after designer Rudolf Uhlenhaut is the closed version of the famous SLR driven by Moss at the 1955 Mille Miglia. It is a front mid engined, three liter desmodromic valve straight eight, magnesium alloy bodied coupe based on the W196 Formula 1 car. Weighing just under 2000 lbs it is rated at just over 300 hp. After Mercedes abandoned racing, this car became the designer's company car, he suffered from hearing loss later in life.  Priceless and amazingly loud, I wonder where the other one is?

Drunk Santa drives a Lambo.

Spectacularly incorrect christmas clip from Lamborghini with a Santa counting on his Aventador's speed to make up for time lost drinking (hot chocolate?) in a seedy bar... Hic!

The Ferrari F150 will be tiny....

It might confuse some  Ford pickup truck buyers, but it looks like Ferrari are going with F150.

The most exciting new revelation about Ferrari next ultimate car is the size:  will be small, the same size as a 458 Italia but with a monster 740HP + V12 supplemented by KERS making it  40% less polluting.  Thank god for that, everyone was terribly worried about the amount of pollution a few hundred Ferrari hypercars would produce driven for the dozens of miles a year they usually are!

Ferrari's web site adds:

Reducing the overall centre of gravity was one of the key targets for the new car, along with a reduction in height and wheelbase to match that of the 458 Italia, despite featuring a V12 HY-KERS engine and dual-clutch gearbox.


In order to rationalise interior space, the cockpit, and consequently the entire vehicle, is built around the driver, making the most of Ferrari’s experience, both in functionality and ergonomics. Hence the decision to adopt a fixed seat, which will be made to measure (as it is in an F1 car), with an adjustable pedal box and steering wheel. The inclination of the backrest, and the fact that the occupant’s feet are at the same level as the driving position, gives an extraordinarily racy feeling and achieves a considerably lower centre of gravity.


The F150 will be powered by a development of the 740 CV 6.3-litre V12 introduced in the new F12berlinetta, along with the latest evolution of Ferrari’s HY-KERS electric hybrid system unveiled at the Geneva Show in 2010. The HY-KERS system is a performance enhancer, as well as a tool in the battle to lower emissions. In fact, it is estimated that that the system shaves 10 per cent off the car’s 0-200 km/h time, while cutting emissions by an impressive 40 per cent, while also enhancing a torque vectoring system, traction control and brake force distribution as it is fully integrated with Ferrari’s already phenomenal chassis electronics. Under braking, the KERS directs the kinetic energy to charge the batteries.

Flavio Manzoni, Design director at Ferrari says of the F150:

‘I wanted a front end still inspired by F1 but not the same, so how to do it?
Of course it’s not easy, but this is the most exciting project in the world!
The F150 will be the Ferrari with the greatest transfer between F1 and a road car that we ever did. We are trying to anticipate the future with this car. We are building a car close to the limits of technology, but we will only have succeeded if you can feel the result. The real objective of a special Ferrari is feeling, feeling, feeling.’

A none too subtle swipe at Mclaren I'd say.

Meanwhile, high above Monte-Carlo...

No rest for the weary: in the hills behind the principality, WRC teams have been busy testing for the 2013 Montecarlo Rally which stats just about a month from today.

The Monte is famous for its varying surface conditions, snow, ice, wet and dry tarmac all on the same stage making finding the correct tire choice compromise , crucial.

Having driven on some of these very roads, these videos never fail to blow me away.

It's Snow Fun

Cult of the car most easily depicted with LEGO: looks like a blast and reminds me of a couple of fun days with another wagon and the Axis crew, couple years back at Monticello Motor Club...
(top: the Dark Car.  Bottom: Axis)

A good couple of days for Romain Grosjean

Romain "Linguini"Grosjean

I once heard a WRC team boss being asked about young drivers who crashed a lot, "You can teach slow" he answered "but you cannot teach speed". Meaning, if you have someone who can go 11/10ths but makes mistakes, the possibility exists you can get through to him to dial back to 10/10ths, a 9/10th driver will...be a good enduro racer.

I don't think anyone is really surprised Lotus confirmed Romain Grosjean for 2013, no doubt he has the speed, he was robbed of a GP win in 2012 in Valencia and has been a quick qualifier. I'm sure Lotus got a great deal on him considering the "annus horribilis" he had in 2012.

The official announcement cane right after Grosjean won the Race of Champions in Bangkok this past week end, defeating Tom Kristensen in the final.

The annual event was shown on YouTube via the Drive channel.
It was....rough.   Despite incessant twitter updates from @Drive, it was not shown live so results were known nine hours before the "broadcast". When time came to watch the festivities, many people just got a big fat "please stand by" sign on YouTube.
I tried for about a half hour and just gave up. You can see segments of the race now on Drive today though I'm not sure why they chose not just stream the live commentary from the Radio Lemans crew.

Maybe next year.



Earlier in the competition, ironically it was Vettel who crashed out...

Sport Turismo

 As an MCoupe owner I must say, this is the way the Porsche Panamera should have looked from the start!

Snow chains

You're doing it wrong.....  (photo via Marchettino)

WIN!

Race of Champions used to be really good

The Race of Champions, started in he late 80s by Michel Mouton as a memorial for Henri Toivonen, used to be pretty badass when it was run on a proper super special stage in the Canary Islands, certainly a far cry from the sanitized go kart track of the current version.
If you do plan of watching this year's edition, you can see it streamed live on YouTube on the Drive channel this week end.



Of course the whole concept was really invented in the US fifteen years earlier with the International Race of Champions.  That too eventually became a bit of a joke but for one season, in 1974 it was glorious.   The winner that year was Mark Donohue and the cars, identically prepared Porsche Carrera RSR.
 I got to warn you though, this clip cuts off before the end of the race. If you know of a complete one please let us know.

Jingle Drift

I'm not totally convinced that's an x-drive but you gotta love the 1 series still has a real handbrake lever!

Porsche 991 GT3 and Turbo in action

You can tell them apart easily by the exhausts, the GT3 with the two center pipes and the Turbo with pairs on each side.  

Clearly this video is from earlier in the year,  the Ring was covered in snow recently as you can always find out when you follow Dale's notes over at BridgeToGantry.com.

Tease

African Turbo

1982 Renault 20 Turbo 4x4 Paris-Dakar

"Fait attention au vaches!"... "aaargh" ... "C'est bon. C'est bon"

Short shorts, t-shirts and unfastened helmets mixed with much gallic arguing, it's hard to believe these two managed to get anywhere, much less win the Dakar outright.    In fact Claude and Bernard Marreau were by then veterans of the first three editions of the desert classic and had a long previous experience in African Rally Raids.

A 1982 GoPro equivalent...

Cheers then for the brothers who 30 years ago, not only dodged african cows, managed not to strangle each other  or kill their Safari edition 4WD Renault 20 Turbo but also made this film without the aid of  a single GoPro!

The soundtrack gets pretty silly at times but stick with it and keep in mind that in the 80's turbos were a new and somewhat dodgy technology,  ballsy by Renault to have the confidence their turbo engine would prove reliable in that hellish torture test.

The engine in the car was a carburated 1.6 L  out of an R18 Turbo,  good for 132 hp.  5 speed transmission, rear locking differential.     Front suspension was  double a arms, rear was a solid axle.
It has been restored, you can find that story HERE

7000 km through Africa in a $700 car.

Think a mix of the original Paris Dakar spirit and the 24 Hours of Lemons, run though a route the real Dakar deemed too unsafe  and moved to South America.    Exhilarating and terrifying at the same time.

The Amsterdam to Dakar Challenge  rules are pretty limited:  You vehicle must cost up to Eu 500 and you can make an additional EU 250 of mods to it.   That's pretty much it.

Impossible?  Yeah,  the "rules"  do allow you to get sponsorship to say,  throw in parts and tires but think more Bill Caswell than Red Bull.   Thankfully, there is an abundance of old Mercedes Taxis and gypsy vehicles to pull from in Europe.   To top it off, it's for a good cause, the Amsterdam-Dakar has raised over $3.5 million since it started in '04.

If Bill's not too busy,  the next 2013 challenge kicks off February 9th.  Rolling from Amsterdam through Marocco with a bunch of crazed Dutchmen....what could possibly go wrong?

The Ultimate Roadtrip - Amsterdam Dakar Challenge 2012 from Beyond Borders Media on Vimeo.

2013 Porsche 991 GT3 Cup

At 9:11 PM Weissach time on Saturday, during their annual Night of Champions celebrations, Porsche announced the much anticipated 991 GT3 Cup racer.   It's big deal because the GT3 Cup has been an incredibly succesful program for Porsche in the past 15 years or so. they sold almost 2400 all well north of $150K plus a pop.   Ad spares  and do the math.

Sure, the 991 looks pretty much like the old one from a distance but there are many refinements:  extra power, new wider wheels, better brakes, improved suspension geometry and driver safety.  The biggest news are the shift paddles. The 991 still has three pedals with the clutch being used for starts so, not a PDK as some had thought.
the New GT3 Cup will be campaigned only in Porsche Supercup for 2013 and then released to all the various national championships in 2014.

New edition of the world’s most successful race car

Stuttgart. The Porsche 911 GT3 Cup is the most successful race car in the world. Since 1998, 2,395 units of the near standard vehicle for customer sport were produced. The new edition of the 911 GT3 Cup is the motorsports version of the future 911 GT3 and as such is the first race car that is based on the seventh generation of the sports car icon from Zuffenhausen. The 911 GT3 Cup will be run exclusively in the Porsche Mobil 1 Supercup in 2013. The car for one-make racing made its debut on the occasion of the end of motorsport season “Night of Champions” celebration at the R&D Centre in Weissach.

The new Porsche 911 GT3 Cup is powered by a 3.8-litre six-cylinder flat engine. It generates 460 hp (338 kW) at 7,500 revs, surpassing the predecessor by 10 hp. A six-speed dog-type gearbox developed by Porsche Motorsport which is operated via shift paddles at the steering wheel for the first time in a Porsche brand trophy race car transmits the power to the rear axle. The single piece race wheels with centre mount were also newly designed by Porsche Motorsport. The width of the Michelin race slicks was increased by two centimetres to 27 centimetres at the front and by ten millimetres at the rear axle to now measure 31 centimetres.

A newly developed race braking system further improves the excellent endurance qualities compared to its successful predecessor. The 380 millimetre slotted and inner-vented steel brake rotors at the front axle are decelerated by six-piston aluminium fixed callipers. The rear axle features a four-piston version.
During the development of the new car a particular emphasis was put on the driver safety. A newly designed safety cage protects the pilot in case of a roll or a collision as does a newly developed race seat which is distinctively shaped around the head and shoulders and can be adjusted individually with the help of padding. A rescue hatch in the roof provides easy access for primary medical attention and for the extrication of the driver.

“The new 911 GT3 Cup is much easier to drive at the limit,” says Porsche works driver Timo Bernhard, who was significantly involved in the development of the new vehicle. “The car is excellently balanced. The new axle geometry is enormously positive for the handling. Apart from that the new Cup 911 is great fun to drive.”

Like its predecessor the new Porsche 911 GT3 Cup is produced in Stuttgart-Zuffenhausen on the same assembly line as the road legal models. At the Motorsport Centre in Weissach it receives a general set-up for the circuit and is tested by a professional race driver before delivery to the customers. The basic price for the vehicle, which is available exclusively in white, is 181,200 Euro plus the country-specific value added tax.

Postcard from the Bahamas

Our friend Michael Scott was at the 2012 Bahamas Speedweek Revival and set us this shot.
Can you identify the cars?

Porsche teases the 991 GT3 Cup

Now with wheel mounted paddle shifter. Still with a clutch pedal, which is interesting.

F1 Season Wrap: grumpy old men tell everyone to get off their lawn

Some time has passed since the end of the Brazilian GP and the whole yellow flag incident. A bit of a spectacle since: what was a completely legitimate question raised and argued by fans turned into a cause celebre for the F1 establishment, all the way up to El Supremo Bernie.

Ecclestone's view that "Flag-gate" was "ridiculous" is perhaps understandable coming from the man who takes credit for yet another exciting season finale and a nail biter for Red Bull and Ferrari fans. However, what's really ridiculous is that with all its high tech gear and telemetry, F1 did not immediately come out and put the matter to rest.  Do not question our judgement, get off our lawn!

Ridiculous was watching establishment motorsport media work the flag issue into a global controversy after it had been already raised and solved, not by them but by, as notorious gatekeeper/grumpy old man Joe Saward calls them, "Internet people".
Frankly, had these "real journalists" managed to raise their noses from the free shrimp buffet in the various hospitality suites and bothered to sit down to go through laps in question frame by frame as "internet people" had done, they could have also put this very legitimate question to bed within 24 hours and not get Bernie upset. We don't question F1's judgement (and we like free shrimp), get off our lawn.

Another one who got all in a bundle recently was Luca di Montezemolo who, with trademark class, called Ecclestone a senile old coot.   di Montezemolo, not exactly a spring chicken himself at 65, was then verbally kung fu'd by the 82 year old Ecclestone who brought up "88 year old Enzo Ferrari when Luca was a young 40"...
It's actually MY lawn, now get off it!.

Not a good week for Monty, that on the heels of Ferrari's official request for a "clarification" on the flag issue. Bad form that, had they looked in on those "internet people" they would have saved themselves yet another PR mistake.

More grumpy old man checking in: 68 year old Dieter Mateschitz came out accusing Alonso for being a sore loser. Frankly, all year long we heard Red Bull whining about being victims and when your star driver takes blames F1 weakest driver and team for his own inability to manage traffic as Vettel did in Austin....
He just forgot now get off his red lawn.

Someone had mentioned how F1 needs a younger audience, perhaps it should quit telling outsiders to get off their lawn...

The Race:

All season we were told Alonso and Ferrari were lucky and chance was why he found himself in a position to fight for the championship at all. Maybe, chance is certainly a part of racing as it was in Brazil for Vettel. For all the griping about bad luck and Senna doing thing to him, Vettel was quite lucky to drive away from a collision he caused on the fist lap, lucky when after gambling on a set of option tires for his second stop, the skyes opened up on his out lap. Fortunately for Seb, Hulkenberg lost it making a move on Hamilton for the lead and the Safety Car was deployed. Vettel struggled around just that one laps and came in for wets. The pit stop was chaotic but he lost little time compared to being out in the pouring rain on slicks. Champions do make the most of luck, no need to pretend it does not exist.

The title was Vettel's to lose and he nearly did, which made it exciting to watch for fans, Red Bull did a superb job again exploiting the regulations to the maximum.F1 put on a good show yet again and moves ahead to a new season minus bendy noses and hopefully a new better form of coverage in the US from F1 new broadcaster, NBC.

Hero to zero award goes to Nico Hulkenberg.  One mistake is all it took,  and just when everyone was saying he should have been the one to take Lewis' seat at Mclaren next year.

One final word about the man who kicked everyone's butt in Brazil: Jenson Button.  His drive on slicks when everyone else was reaching for wets was, to say the least, spectacular.

Well done Gentleman Jenson!

1:23 at Road Atlanta...with Air Conditioning

Granted, Top Speed Motorsport is capable of extracting over 1000 HP out of a GT-R but even with a slightly more sane tune, you would still have to keep it on the road and have the balls to drive this Godzilla around the corners properly. That's where Leh Keen comes in.

Just to put it in perspective, pole for this year's Porsche GT3 Challenge at Road Atlanta was 1:26 so 1:23 is ..."not bad" for a road legal car.

Red is Dead

It's not entirely clear if Renault UK commissioned this campaign or if it was just the ad agency doing it on spec but,  it's pretty funny.  

I imagine in Maranello they are either humorlessly planning a lawsuit  or amused at the thought Renault won their 10th championship in a ....RED Bull!

Check out more of the Red Is Dead campaign after the jump.

V8 Supercar attacks Porsche Panamera

And can you blame it really?

Shane Van Gisbergen was at the wheel of a directionally challenged V8 Falcon during the Telstra 500 in Sydney on December 1st when steering completely failed just as the Panamera medical car was passing on the left. You got to love how the Panamera gets a round of applause driving down pit lane!
(thanks Gordon!)