World car awards 2022

Listen to this article It was Indianapolis Motor Speedway founder Carl Fisher who came up with the idea of ditching the standing start for the more spectacular – and in Fisher’s mind, safer – rolling start. He would lead the field – at that time, 40 cars arranged in eight rows of five! – driving a Stoddard-Dayton at 45mph. Every Indy 500 has used a pace car ever since. Fisher paced the first five and then it became the duty and honor of various automotive industry figures or retired racers, and a great marketing tool for car manufacturers to supply the cars. That had the potential to raise some interesting juxtapositions – Louis Chevrolet piloting a Chrysler in 1926, for instance – and cause some issues after the race, too. From 1936 it became traditional for the 500 winner to be awarded the pace car, but in ’65, the Ford Motor Company, fundamental to Team Lotus’s assault on the Indy 500, did not let its winner Jimmy Clark accept the keys to the Plymouth Sport Fury pace car. … [Read more...] about Every Indy 500 pace car and its driver, 1911 to 2022

Fernando Alonso has said Lewis Hamilton’s struggles this season are a “good reminder” as to how crucial the car is to anyone’s success. For the first time in nine seasons, Hamilton is driving in a car currently unable to fight for the championship. His race results so far have ranged from good to downright awful and after five grands prix, he has just one podium to his name largely due to a double retirement from Red Bull. It is a far cry from the form we are used to seeing from the seven-time World Champion. After the same number of races last year, he already had three wins but both he and Mercedes currently seem a far way off that achievement. Another World Champion who has found himself fighting in the midfield due to the car beneath him is Alonso and he said Hamilton’s current form is a “good reminder” as to how important the car is. “This is F1. It is not going to be a fair sport in terms of numbers,” the Spaniard told BBC Sport . “This is a team sport more … [Read more...] about Alonso: 2022 ‘good reminder’ of car’s role in Hamilton success

Listen to this article Prodrive has a long history of working with Subaru, including being a partner in the automaker's World Rally Championship competition in the 1990s and 2000s. The company just posted a teaser hinting at revealing something on May 25 that might be a revival of this golden era for Subie. The teaser image is a simple line drawing of what certainly appears to be a mid-1990s Subaru Impreza WRX . The design of the wing and hood scoop are close matches to that car's design. Plus, the location of the B-pillar towards the rear of the roofline hints that this might be a coupe. There's also the mystery of the P25 name, but we have a theory. "P" could easily stand for Prodrive. The "25" might be a reference to an anniversary. A quarter-century ago in 1997, Subaru won its third consecutive WRC Manufacturers' Championship . In 1998, Subaru celebrated the trio of titles by building the famous Impreza 22B STI . That model attempted to create a road-going version … [Read more...] about Prodrive P25 Teaser Looks Like Subaru Impreza Rally Car From The 1990s

Two classic Nigel Mansell Formula 1 cars fetched over £6million combined when they went up for auction in Monaco. As a Formula 1 World Champion and 31-time race winner, Mansell throughout his Formula 1 career got behind the wheel of several iconic cars. And two of those went under the hammer via Sotherby’s in Monaco. The first of these cars was the 1991 Williams FW14, the challenger that perhaps most famously became a taxi for Ayrton Senna at Silverstone that year. Mansell had claimed pole and won the race after leading every lap, as well as setting the fastest lap of the race, while Senna’s McLaren had ran out of fuel on the final lap. Mansell would pick his rival up on the victory lap to give him a lift back to the pits. That Williams FW14 was gifted to Mansell by the team at the end of the season, but having put it up for auction, the car fetched a whopping £3.45m. That’s even with the car unable to run, since Renault had taken their engine from it before the car … [Read more...] about Mansell made over £6m from two F1 cars at auction

The Baku race promoter has confirmed changes will be made to the unusual pit lane entry, following a request from the FIA. The 2022 Azerbaijan Grand Prix is scheduled to be held on 12 June, with various tweaks planned for the Baku Street Circuit before the race goes ahead. One of the changes planned is to the pit lane entry, which came in for some criticism during the course of last year’s event. In the 2021 edition of the Grand Prix, both Red Bull’s Max Verstappen and Aston Martin’s Lance Stroll suffered sudden tyre failures that resulted in high-speed impacts with the opposite wall on the pit-lane straight. Verstappen had been leading the race at the time and Red Bull told the FIA that they had zero indication the tyres were about to go, with the Dutch driver pointing out the dangers of what might have happened if his car had speared off in the opposite direction and into the contentious pit wall entry. The circuit design was also highlighted by 2016 World Champion Nico … [Read more...] about Baku to tweak controversial pit entry ahead of 2022 race

Listen to this article Just one week after rumors swept the automotive realm about a record-setting automotive auction, Mercedes-Benz confirmed everything is true. The world's most expensive car is officially the Mercedes-Benz 300 SLR Uhlenhaut Coupe, of which only two exist. And the price is truly astounding: 135 million euros, which equals $143.1 million at current exchange rates. It's a record-setting price that literally doubles the $70 million sale of a Ferrari 250 GTO in 2018. RM Sotheby's facilitated the auction, which took place on May 5 at the Mercedes-Benz Museum. As you can imagine, this was a private, invitation-only event that Mercedes says included "customers and international collectors of cars and art, who share the corporate values of Mercedes-Benz." The identity of the high-bidder remains anonymous, but as part of the deal, the SLR's new owner will make it available for display on special occasions. With an extra $143 million in its … [Read more...] about Mercedes 300 SLR Uhlenhaut Coupe Is World’s Most Expensive Car At $143M

Listen to this article The NFT collaboration features a three-part NFT collection: an exclusive redeemable 2022 Indianapolis 500 Race Day commemorative ticket, an NTT IndyCar Series ‘Mystery Driver Container, featuring 33 driver cards’ and a re-creation of Mark Donohue’s 1972 Team Penske-run McLaren M16. The 2022 Race Day Ticket is a commemorative NFT available for free to everyone who purchased a seat for the 500. All ticket holders are eligible to redeem the NFT and unlock additional content. The 2022 Mystery Driver Container is a unique NFT that, once purchased and opened, reveals one of the 33 drivers in this year’s 500. Each driver will have 33 mystery containers available with the contents only revealed to purchasers on Friday, May 27 ahead of Indy 500 Race Weekend. Fans will be able to collect their favorite drivers ahead of the event. Following the Indy 500, every person in possession of a revealed mystery container will receive a piece of carbon fiber from the … [Read more...] about Autograph announces 2022 Indy 500 NFT Collection

Listen to this article In a bid to become "the world's most valuable luxury car brand," Mercedes is overhauling its product portfolio by splitting models into three categories: Entry Luxury, Core Luxury, and Top-End Luxury. There will be considerably less focus on compact cars going forward as the plan calls for more than 75 percent of investments to be made in the bigger and more expensive vehicles, which we all know have higher profit margins. To that end, the German automaker will cut down on the number of Entry Luxury model variants from seven to four. However, Mercedes doesn't go into details about which compact vehicles are facing the proverbial axe. We'll remind you the three-pointed star sells the following small cars: A-Class hatchback, A-Class sedan, B-Class minivan, CLA swoopy sedan, CLA Shooting Brake wagon, and the GLA and GLB crossovers. 63 Photos … [Read more...] about Mercedes Confirms Maybach SL And Plans To Axe Some Compact Cars

The Spanish Grand Prix will be the second successive hot race weekend for Formula 1’s drivers to contend with after the Miami Grand Prix. Advert | Become a Supporter & go ad-free Temperatures are expected to match those that challenged the drivers around Florida last time out, which Haas driver Kevin Magnussen later described as the “hardest race I’ve ever done” due to the “unbelievable” heat. There is less than a two percent chance of rain forecast across each of the three days of running this weekend. Air temperatures are likely to get hotter – albeit only slightly – as the days progress. A cloudier start to the weekend on Friday should see a top of around 28C for the afternoon’s first practice session. Then, clearer skies are expected for the following two days, with temperatures likely to reach as high as 30C. This makes this year’s Spanish Grand Prix one of the hotter races in Barcelona in recent memory, significantly warmer than both 2021 and 2019. The … [Read more...] about Another hot weekend set to punish drivers and cars in Barcelona · RaceFans