The best Formula One interview ever.

Are you bored with hearing about Lewis Hamilton's underwear or Nico Rosberg's sweat absorbing sanitary napkin?  

Here is a perfect antidote.      Alex Kersten is a genius.



Enjoy.

Horse Power and Fuel Saving.

We're loving these pre season promotional videos.  This one, from Shell, gives a glimpse behind the scenes at the Scuderia, albeit one revealing almost nothing of the new power units.

We don't know how this new formula will play out for the sport but there is no doubt that preparation for it has been, a monumental challenge on the engineering side.

Take for example the latest speculation about some innovative gearbox management at Ferrari.

In testing some have remarked how quiet, compared to other cars, the red cars were in the corner entry phase.  Usually a car braking while approaching a corner will be downshifting through the gears and  computer controlled gearboxes will automatically blip the throttle to match engine revs and smooth the shifts.  Problem is, with this fuel critical formula, any unnecessary throttle action is a no no.
 
According to Autosprint Ferrari have worked around this by using electrical power from the MGU-K rather than combustion power to match revs on downshifts.  It is a small saving but, considering there might be as many as 70 gearshifts per lap, it adds up over the course of a race.

As with anything there will be pros and cons, less fuel but more stress on electrical components and less power to drive the wheels.

Just another fascinating tidbit to follow.

500 Races

Shell and Ferrari,  technical partners  since 1947...  This clip may be a bit dramatic but there is so much win in there, literally!

Massa working on 2013.

Think it's easy being a Formula 1 driver at Ferrari?

Imagine you are Felipe Massa, the Rodney Dangerfield of F1, under mostrer pressure for not performing in the first race of your do or die year. You want to fulfill your contractual obligations but it has to be this, pumping gas with everyone taking pictures?   PR Face Palm.

Shell and Ferrari

This sort of thing just does not quite as well with say, Red Bull and Infiniti does it?

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"Fernando, the fuel is faster than you..."

Funny line the BBC giant got in. I post this more for the peek behind the scenes at Fiorano than anything else, that and to see if anyone will complain about Ferrari getting extra testing. Nice plug for Shell.

(via speedmerchantsmedia)

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Schumacher testing at Mugello Video

(Gazzetta Dello Sport)

Not much of a video but there he is testing with a 3 year old car on loan from a Ferrari collector. Not very relevant to the 2009 model except to evaluate Schumacher's physical condition and to see if he has fully recovered from his neck injury sustained as a result of his last fall from a Superbike (and maybe the resulting butt kicking he surely got from his wife!)

There is talk Ferrari might exploit a loophole in the regulations and request a test for Schumacher in the current 2009 car. Article 22.1.a of the 2009 FIA F1 sporting regulations allows for an exception to the testing ban if the test is part of:

i) promotional or demonstration events carried out using tyres provided specifically for this

purpose by the appointed supplier.

Interesting to see if any of the other teams will object.

I say put him through a rigorous test, not just with a three year old car but with a wider range of Ferrari machinery and film the whole thing and...oh wait.

OK that was cheap but hey, what's the downside of having watched an extended version of history's greatest commercial?




And here is the rest of it.

Onboard telemetry is for wimps...Part II

Dan Gurney was not the first, in 1937, Mercedes developed this two seat version of their W125 in order to study suspension movements at speed, close up!



The same car was used in 1962 to film a promotional film for Shell. Shell has made some great motorsport movies over the years, most recently that amazing Ferrari though the ages film. In 1962 they produced "Round the Ring" an onboard lap of the Nürburgring with Herman Lang driving a Mercedes W125. The movie was narrated by Graham Hill.

Amazing looking at the track back then, I wonder if hedges cost more than aarmco to fix?

The clip is after the jump.

Because it's Thanksgiving

and for no other particular reason....time to replay the best commercial ever made. 

Enjoy and happy Thanksgiving from the Axis....and Shell

back

Behind the scenes of the greates commercial ever made

A few months back we featured the fantastic shell ad with 60 years of Ferrari F1 cars lapping the world.
I just came across this bahind the scenes, "making of" piece. It's interesting to note that contrary to what was suggested by some at the time, the cars were not mostly computer generated. Sure, they cleaned up a lot of stuff in CG but the cars really were running in Times Square and on Park Avenue. We are still trying to figure out how Stee was not aware of a 1967 Ferrari 312 F1 running around his back yard!




The greatest commercial ever filmed....download a copy and watch it every morning with coffee!

Download

more on the Ferrari 312 F1

"Non é male", the best clip you will ever see.

Sometimes you come across something that is so brilliant it just makes you want to jump up and down, yell, play air guitar and do all manner of slightly embarrassing behaviours. That's how I felt when our friend Josh from GoDogGo Racing turned me on to this AMAZING commercial for Shell.

It is simply the best automotive commercial ever made. Film buffs will see the references to C'était un Rendez-vous and to Steve McQueen's LeMans and John Frankenheimer's Grand Prix. There is a SuperSqualo, there is a classic Nurburgring jump shot, there is Chris Amon, Jackie Ickx.... It's a Ferrarista's orgasm.

That's it I'm only buying Shell gas from now on!

Here is a large sized, not compressed by YouTube version you can save to your hard drive. Enjoy.


Download

The commercial was directed by Antoine Bardou Jacquet and produced by David Stewart for Partizan