Categories
WRC

Nokia withdraws WRC sponsorship

Nokia ends WRC sponsorship

As the WRC forges on without its former promoter North One Sport it probably hoped a lucrative deal with Nokia could help to partly fill the void. Originally touted as a “ground-breaking new partnership” when the deal was announced in June last year—with promises of an exclusive mobile application, providing access to video footage, live standings and car telemetry data—Nokia has now withdrawn its support.

It’s understood the sponsorship was worth £2.5m per year to the sport and WRC Commission President Jarmo Mahonen says the news is a blow to the category.

“This is quite a big loss to the championship. We didn’t see it as just money coming in, Nokia was going to be a partner. It was a very good platform,” Mahonen said.

Nokia has been struggling itself with high hopes for its new Lumia 900 smartphone not exactly going to plan, when “a memory management issue was discovered that could, in some cases, lead to loss of data connectivity.”

In better news for WRC it’s expected they will announce a deal with a new promoter when the World Motorsport Council next meets on 15 June.

[Source: motorsport.com]

Categories
Toyota

Toyota 86 Australian pricing TBA on 4 June

Toyota 86

Toyota Australia has confirmed via their Facebook page the whispers we’d already heard: pricing and local specifications for the new rear-wheel drive 86 sportscar will be announced at 10am on Monday 4 June.

Although, the cat may already be out of the bag in regards to pricing, with reports a Toyota dealer in Queensland has already been giving quotes to enquiring customers. It’s believed the 86 will be offered in entry-level GT spec as well as a higher GTS specification; the former will reportedly be priced from $39,000, the latter from $43,000. We won’t be surprised if those figures prove to be inaccurate, but we reckon they’ll be around the mark.

Some media outlets are also reporting the 86 has secured enough orders to ensure there’ll be a minimum two month waiting list. Although we note on the Facebook page Toyota’s Nowra dealership is trying to find bites for the two models it has on its books.

Besides, two months is no great strain when you need to wait 6–12 months for a Polo GTI or Golf R.

After the break we’ve got an ad from the US, where the Toybaru is badged as the Scion FR-S. You can be certain we’ll never see an ad like this on Australian TV screens.

[Thanks to Scott for the tip]

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Categories
Formula 1

Button says unpredictable F1 is bad for fans

2012 Monaco Grand Prix

Jenson Button, who has struggled with the McLaren MP4-27 since winning the Australian Grand Prix, says the unpredictable nature of Formula One could drive fans away from the sport. Is he mad?

For the first time in the sport’s history there have been six different winners from the opening six races. Those wins have been shared among five different manufacturers, with only Red Bull collecting a pair of wins.

“Clearly everyone is excited about so many different winners, which initially was great for the fans and great for the sport. But there will come a time when the fans will say, ‘So anyone can win a grand prix, everyone can lose a grand prix like that?’ (snaps his fingers),” claims Button.

Sorry, but isn’t it a good thing if “anyone can win a grand prix”? At the same point in the season last year Sebastian Vettel had five wins, Hamilton one. Two different winners, two different teams.

Moreover, the opportunity of winning the championship last year was limited to former residents of Heppenheim, but only if they drove a Red Bull. Indeed, Vettel ended up winning 11 out of 19 races, the remaining eight were shared between only four others.

How is that any better than what we’re seeing this year?

Button added, “I think they’re (fans) finding it a little bit strange now. I don’t know, but hopefully a pattern will emerge after the next couple of races and we’ll understand the teams and drivers we need to beat to win the championship.”

We can’t speak for all F1 fans, of course, but here at AUSmotive HQ we reckon the fact that the title race is so open is a damn good thing. We’d not complain if Mark Webber won all the remaining races, but with the likelihood that that won’t happen, give us a situation where we don’t really know what to expect in any given race over a predictable procession any time.

[Source: The Press Association]

Categories
Ferrari Lamborghini Maserati News

Earthquake brings temporary closures at Ferrari, Lamborghini and Maserati

An earthquake to the north west of Bologna in Italy has claimed the lives of at least 15 people and brought temporary closures to the Ferrari, Lamborghini and Maserati factories.

While the Maserati factory in nearby Modena did suffer some minor damage, it’s been reported the supercar makers stopped operations to allow workers to be with their families.

Last night’s earthquake was magnitude-5.8 and followed hours later by a second quake at magnitude-5.3. Last week the same region was affected by a magnitude-6.0 quake which killed seven people, leaving thousands injured.

Salvatore Iannizzotto from Modena police said: “The situation is one of great fear and uncertainty. The population was becoming more relaxed and slowly moving back into their homes. They have now left their homes again.”

Rescue workers are continuing to search for survivors and we wish them well.

[Source: Autoblog & ABC | Pic: Luca Bruno/AP]

Categories
BMW

Let them eat cake!

In this promo video BMW tries to persuade us that you can drive like a hooligan and be efficient at the same time. They call it having your cake and eating it too. If they’re willing to hand over a 1M Coupé or somesuch to AUSmotive for some long term evaluation of that claim, we’ll happily swallow their words.

Categories
Motorsports Porsche Video

VIDEO: Worm’s eye view of the Nürburgring

Porsche Carrera Cup battle

Here, from a worm’s eye view, is an awesome battle for position during a Porsche Carrera Cup event held over the Nürburgring 24 hour race weekend. The video takes us on a white knuckle ride for a full lap of the Nordschleife. We know you’re gonna like this one, so sit back and enjoy the ride.

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Categories
Aston Martin

VIDEO: Aston Martin Project AM310

Aston Martin Project AM310

Fresh from its world premiere appearance at the Concorso d’Eleganza Villa d’Este, comes this video of the Aston Martin Project AM310.

There’s elements of the One-77 to the styling and following suit the body work is expected to use lashings of carbon fibre.

The AM310 gives us the first inkling of what to expect for the next DBS. It’s got a 6.0 V12 under the bonnet, of course, that’s good for around 575hp (430kW). As the video shows, it’s a pretty wicked sounding engine too!

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Categories
Porsche

Limited Porsche 911 Club Coupe revealed

Porsche 911 Club Coupe

Last week marked the 60th anniversary of the establishment of the first Porsche car club. It had just seven members. Shortly after a second club was formed, with six members. Now, there are 640 official Porsche clubs around the globe, comprising of 181,000 members,

To honour the occasion Porsche is making a highly exclusive special edition called the 911 Club Coupe. Just 13 will be made and only 12 will be offered for sale. The thirteenth example will be kept by Porsche.

If you want to buy one of these Club Coupes you’ll need to be a Porsche club member, obviously, and then register your interest and hope your name is drawn out of a hat.

There’s more to this Club Coupe than a lick of Brewster Green paint. Starting with a 991 Carrera S, Porsche has upped the power by 22kW to a new peak of 316kW. That power gain has been achieved through the use of an official Powerkit, featuring an uprated cylinder head and camshafts. These have been complemented by a new intake and sports exhaust system.

Cosmetic enhancements include a specially designed “duck tail” rear spolier, 20” Sport Techno alloy wheels and espresso leather with  luxor beige contrast stitching. A neat touch is the interior trim over the glove box which will be personalised with the owner’s name.

You’ll have to really want one, though. At launch the European pricing for a regular Carrera S was €102,436, including taxes. The Club Coupe is €142,831, excluding taxes. God forbid what those prices would be in Australian dollars!

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Categories
Ferrari

Eric Clapton officially gets his Ferrari SP12 EC

Ferrari SP12 EC made for Eric Clapton

Back in March we brought word about a one-off Ferrari made at the request of Eric Clapton. Now, he has been officially handed the keys. Or at least he speaks about his Ferrari SP12 EC in the latest issue of Ferrari’s official magazine.

Inspired by the 1970s Ferrari 512 BB, the SP12 EC is built on a 458 Italia chassis. Why the 512BB? Probably because Clapton has owned three of them over the years, among many other Ferraris.

Centro Stile Ferrari, in collaboration with Pininfarina, handled the design duties and we reckon they’ve done a pretty fine job too.

The rock god, with millions of record sales behind him, says being involved in this project with Ferrari is, “One of the most satisfying things I’ve ever done.”

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Caterham F1 in pictures Ferrari Lotus McLaren Mercedes-Benz Red Bull Racing Toro Rosso

2012 Monaco Grand Prix in pictures

2012 Monaco Grand Prix

Hey, in case you missed it: MARK WEBBER WON THE MONACO GRAND PRIX!

We’re still pretty excited by the result and if you are too then we’ve got over 100 pics from the race to serve as a lasting memento.

Enjoy!

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Categories
Peugeot

Peugeot adopts One direction

Peugeot 301

This humble mid-size car from Peugeot, which won’t even be sold in Australia, represents a huge shift in the company’s naming structure. It’s the 301 and will be the first model to carry the new nomenclature.

Previously, the badging for Peugeot worked like this: the first number indicated the size of the car—the bigger the number, the bigger the car; the central zero is a key Peugeot trademark; and the final digit represented the generation of the vehicle. To put that in a real-world context, the 306 was the sixth generation of Peugeot’s mid-size hatch. It was followed by the 307 and the 308.

You can see why something had to change with the naming. Were the old system to continue the 308 would become the 309 and, then what? The three-digit model naming is central to Peugeot’s brand and that is unlikely to ever change.

Under the new naming convention the model designations will stay the same from generation to generation. Now, the final digit will remain the same and as you can see with the image of the 301 above all new Peugeot models from this point forward will end with a 1.

Over time the previous nomenclature evolved to cater for a wider variety of models on the same platform. For example, SW has been added to indicate a station wagon version of a specific model. Similarly, a double-zero, as seen in the 4008, indicates the model is a vehicle with a “high structure”. That means SUV to you and me. Those systems will continue, but will, of course, adapt to the new 1 badging. So the next generation of 4008 will be the 4001.

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Categories
Citroen WRC

Sebastien Loeb wins 2012 Acropolis Rally

2012 Acropolis Rally

The unstoppable Sebastien Loeb has proved that once again after he won the 2012 Acropolis Rally by 40 seconds from his Citroën teammate Mikko Hirvonen.

While the end result makes it look like it was a dominant weekend for the Citroën team, that wasn’t really the case. Loeb started the final day just 10 seconds ahead of Ford driver Petter Solberg and a battle for the win loomed. However, Solberg, needing to apply the pressure, made an error and crashed out on the day’s opening stage. So, later in the day on SS20 when Loeb was slowed by a puncture he was able to remain reasonably calm.

Hirvonen had settled for third place in his mind, but was promoted to second place after Solberg’s retirement. It’s the third one-two victory for the Citroën team this year and it’s no surprise to see they enjoy a 73pt lead in the manufacturers’ championship.

Meanwhile, Loeb’s fourth win of the year has helped him to a 30pt lead over Hirvonen in the race for the drivers’ title. Incredibly, the win in Greece is Loeb’s 71st career victory in the WRC.

“We managed this race well, despite the constant pressure we were put under by our rivals,” said Loeb. “I never lost my cool at any point, even when we got a puncture, because I knew we would still have enough of a lead.”

You can read Citroën’s official account of the Acropolis Rally below. The WRC heads south for its next event, Rally New Zealand on 22–24 June.

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