Autoesque

Lewis Hamilton will probably just want to forget his Australian Grand Prix weekend. First of all, he got nicked by the rozzers on Friday for ‘improper use of a motor vehicle’ after they saw him wheel-spinning his Mercedes-Benz road car, which was then promptly impounded. He was then outclassed by McLaren team mate Jenson Button in both qualifying and the race itself, Hamilton ending up in sixth place and clearly frustrated. Afterwards, he decided to publicly criticise the team’s tactics. Realising that was never going to make him very popular, Hamilton has since done some diplomatic back-peddling to smooth things over, saying he now ‘understands’ the decision to bring him in for a second pit stop. But the icing on the cake has been the comments made by Tim Pallas , the Minister for Roads and Ports in the Australian state of Victoria. Launching his ‘Don’t Be A Dickhead’ road safety campaign on Monday, the day after the Grand Prix, Pallas was asked whether Hamilton would fit into

Ford has decided to reveal details of its new Focus RS500 two days early, due to ‘overwhelming interest’. The RS500 is the swansong for the current Focus, before the all-new third generation model arrives next year. As the name implies, production will be limited to just 500 examples, which Ford will be allocating across its European markets. 101 cars, the largest share, are destined for the UK. Ford thinks France and Germany are also potentially big RS500 territories, as they’ll be getting 56 and 55 units respectively. And the Belgians must be keen RS fans, because their relatively small market is to receive 50. Each car will have a hand engraved plaque on the centre console with a unique identification number from 001 - 500. The RS500 features the same engine found in the standard Focus RS, albeit heavily modified. Ford engineers have worked with Revolve Technologies on developing the 2.5 litre Duratec turbocharged motor, focussing mainly on improving mid-range and top-end

What a difference two weeks make. After the yawn-fest that was the Bahrain Grand Prix, the Australian event had excitement from start to finish. Drivers were even managing to overtake each other. It just goes to show that you don’t have to spend $150 million on a sterile Hermann Tilke creation to get a decent race… just run the track through your local car park instead. Jenson Button’s win was definitely helped by his bold decision to stop early and swap his wet weather inter tyres for slicks. His smooth driving style then meant he could make those tyres last until the end, without needing to change again. By contrast, Button’s team mate Lewis Hamilton did have to use another set of dry tyres. But those too began to degrade towards the end and, although he caught the fourth and third place Ferraris of Fernando Alonso and Felipe Massa, he was unable to pass them. Hamilton was very public in his criticism of McLaren’s decision to bring him (but not Button) in again for new tyres

Austrian manufacturer KTM has unveiled its Freeride electric bikes at the Tokyo Motorcycle Show. Available as either an off-road enduro or a street-orientated supermoto, both versions share the same battery and motor technology. That means a peak 30 horsepower and a top speed of 43 mph (70 km/h). Performance is helped by the two bikes being so diminutive - total all-in weight is only 90 kg, including the battery pack. As with most electric vehicles, it’s the battery that will be so critical to the success of the product. Price, performance, range and recharging time are all directly influenced by it. According to KTM, the Freeride’s 2.5 kWh battery should be good for one hour of off-road riding. After that, it’ll take 90 minutes to fully recharge, although alternatively it can simply be swapped over for another one - assuming the rider can afford the cost of a spare. KTM is planning to commence European Freeride sales in spring 2011, with a price expected to be ‘under €10,0

According to What Car? magazine, the Mitsubishi i-MiEV is going to cost a staggering £33,699 when UK sales start in January 2011. You’ll be able to knock five thousand off that figure thanks to the OLEV Plug-in Car Grant , but even charging (no pun intended) £28,699 for a small car with a 100-mile range seems crazy. Perhaps those lithium-ion batteries give off some kind of vapour that addles the brain? Mitsubishi reckons that users will save money when it comes to running costs though, claiming the electricity bill over 12,000 miles will be just £115. The i-MiEV will also be exempt from road tax. But even with those savings, the figures just don’t appear to stack up. It’s difficult to see how customers will be tempted out of their ‘normal’ cars. Looking at Mitsubishi’s own range, for example, a £14,849 Lancer Hatchback 1.5 GS2 is almost half the price of the i-MiEV - even after the government subsidy has been deducted. Part of the problem is that the Lancer’s fuel costs wo

Entries for the 2010 British Touring Car Championship have been confirmed. In total there’ll be a healthy 23-car grid this season, with seven different manufacturers and nine different models represented. For the first time in the BTCC, Chevrolet will be entering a works-backed team. It’ll be debuting the Cruze, following the car’s inaugural campaign in last year’s World Touring Car Championship. The team will be run by RML, also responsible for Chevrolet’s WTCC operation. Having a second factory team in the championship alongside Honda is good news. Chevrolet’s decision to compete also allows Jason Plato to stay in the BTCC. Having just missed out on the championship last year in his independently entered Chevrolet Lacetti, he’ll be a serious challenger for the 2010 title. From the picture above, it would appear that Plato has participated in a ‘bring your kid to work day’. In fact it’s his new Chevrolet team mate, 19-year-old Alex MacDowall, who was runner-up in 2009’s Renau

Images have emerged of the Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG GT3 racing car. Built to challenge rivals such as the Porsche 997 GT3 Cup S, Ferrari 430 Scuderia, BMW Z4 GT3 and Aston Martin DBRS9, it’s expected to make its competition debut in 2011. Few details have been revealed about the new car, although its 6.3 litre V8 should produce slightly more than the 571 bhp found in a road-going SLS AMG. Visually, the most obvious change is the addition of a huge wing on the back, which will work together with the enlarged front splitter to provide plenty of down force on the circuit. The interior is totally stripped out, and a full roll-cage has been fitted. It’s unknown whether Mercedes-Benz has approached the FIA yet regarding homologation. It will be interesting to see if the FIA feels those gull-wing doors are a potential safety risk - they’ll certainly make driver extraction difficult if the car ends up on its roof after an accident.

In a move that might alienate some fans of the brand, BMW CEO Norbert Reithofer has revealed plans for a range of small BMW cars that will share a front wheel drive / all-wheel drive platform with Mini. This is a major paradigm shift. Up until now, BMW has stuck to either rear or all-wheel drive for its entire line-up, on the basis that only those layouts would deliver the superior handling balance that’s central to the marque’s reputation. How else could BMW provide The Ultimate Driving Machine / Sheer Driving Pleasure / Freude am Fahren etc, etc? The new BMW models will sit below the 1 Series, which is to retain its RWD architecture, and be between 3800mm and 4300mm long. To put those figures into context, the Mini hatch is 3699mm, the Mini Clubman is 3937mm and the BMW 1 Series hatch is 4239mm. So it seems the new range is going to have to squeeze into a tiny gap between those existing models. A fairly safe assumption is that the next generation 1 Series will grow slightly,

Following a dominant performance in qualifying, it was no surprise that Peugeot went on to win its first Sebring 12 Hours race this weekend. In the end, it was the number 07 Peugeot 908 HDi FAP of Alexander Wurz, Anthony Davidson and Marc Gene that took victory in the first race of the 2010 American Le Mans Series . Its sister car, driven by Pedro Lamy, Sebastien Bourdais and Nicolas Minassian, finished just behind in second place, completing the same number of laps. It was, arguably, a somewhat hollow victory. The main challenge to the diesel Peugeots for both LMP1 and overall honours would probably have come from the Audi R15 TDI, also diesel powered. Audi however was absent from Sebring, although it had wanted to compete. Because Audi didn’t have a full 2010 spec car ready in time, it tried to enter an interim R15 instead. It would have complied with the updated regulations regarding air restrictors and reduced turbo pressures, but its aerodynamics - especially around the

Honda and Team Dynamics Motorsport have announced the Honda Racing Team driver line-up for 2010’s British Touring Car Championship . After spending the past two seasons with the now-departed Vauxhall VX Racing team, Matt Neal will be returning to the outfit run by his father. It’s a driver / team / manufacturer combination that has worked well in the past. Both times Neal won the championship (in 2005 and 2006) he was at the wheel of a Team Dynamics Honda Integra. Joining him at Honda will be Gordon Shedden who, just to reinforce the sense of déjà vu, was Neal’s team mate in 2006 and 2007. If previous form is anything to go by, they should be close competitors. Shedden just beat Neal to third place in the 2007 season, the Honda drivers finishing behind Jason Plato and eventual champion Fabrizio Giovanardi in his Vauxhall Vectra. This year’s first BTCC race is at Thruxton, Hampshire on 4 April.

The appeal of a re-engineered classic car is not difficult to see - you get all the style, but upgraded modern components mean it’ll also stop properly, go around corners and start first time, every time. It’s a concept that seems to have been particularly popular with Jaguars, with firms like KWE in the UK and Beacham in New Zealand modernising models of various vintages. Classic Recreations of Yukon, Oklahoma are now doing something similar with the Ford Mustang. However, what makes their Shelby G.T.500CR special is that Carroll Shelby Licensing Inc. has granted them a licence to produce this continuation series. Using a 1967 Ford Mustang as the start point, authentic Shelby performance parts are used throughout the conversion. Because of that, and the input and oversight given by Shelby technical personnel, each car will come with an official Shelby serial number and badges, and be included in the Shelby Worldwide Registry. Three versions are on offer. The $119,000 Intro

At last, some good economic news for the north east of England. Nissan has decided that the Leaf electric car will be built at its Sunderland plant, securing hundreds of jobs. Nissan had previously said that a new factory to manufacture lithium-ion batteries, which the Leaf runs on, would be sited in Sunderland. However, it was by no means certain that the car itself would also be built there. Fears that Nissan would select a location outside of the UK had intensified, after it lost out to BMW in the deal to provide a car fleet for the 2012 London Olympics. The Sunderland plant’s reputation for efficiency will have helped enormously in overcoming that apparent snub. A £20.7 million grant from the UK government, together with £197.3 million from the European Investment Bank, probably made the decision easier too. Nissan though has been keen to emphasise that the UK’s environmental policies were also an important factor, especially regarding the setting up of a charging infrast

How do you not notice a Renault Clio stuck to the front of your truck? The driver in this incredible YouTube video obviously didn't. Arclid Transport , the firm that owns the lorry, says on its website, ‘We have developed an unsurpassed reputation for delivery where you want it, when you want it - swiftly and safely…’ Well, it’s certainly moving fairly swiftly. Scary stuff.

BMW has BMW M GmbH and Mercedes-Benz has Mercedes-AMG GmbH. Perhaps feeling left out, Volkswagen has joined its compatriots by creating a specialist high performance division. It has even followed BMW’s lead by using a single letter to name it, as the operation will be known as Volkswagen R GmbH. Volkswagens carrying the ‘R’ badge are nothing new, though. R models already available in the UK include the Golf R, Passat R Line and R36, Scirocco R, Tiguan R Line and Touareg R50. The new subsidiary takes over those activities previously carried out by Volkswagen Individual. 300 people are employed at its base near Wolfsburg, hopefully busy preparing an R variant of the new Polo that will sit above the recently-launched 177 bhp GTi.

Fuel prices in the UK are soon set to rise by another three pence, pushing the cost of petrol to around £1.20 per litre - that’s an incredible £5.46 per gallon. This latest increase is due to government plans to raise fuel duty on 1 April. But it hides bigger issues. The last time prices approached £1.20 per litre was in 2008, following the dramatic increase in wholesale oil prices to $147 per barrel. Oil is now ‘only’ $80 per barrel, yet clearly pump prices have not fallen by a similar 45% in the meantime. That’s partly because speculators have kept wholesale petrol prices high, with marked increases since late January. Such activity obviously has a direct effect on retail prices. As expected, motoring groups are urging that the impending fuel duty increase should be delayed or abandoned, in an attempt to soften the impact on drivers. Members of Parliament are also joining the calls for postponement, with Labour MP Lindsay Hoyle even claiming, ‘Motorists are being legally m

Beware samples of one, but the opening Grand Prix of 2010 didn’t bode particularly well for the new Formula 1 regulations. The revised pit-stop rules - tyres have to be changed during the race, but no refuelling is allowed - seem to have resulted in drivers being more concerned with tyre preservation, rather than battling to get up the running order (something the new points system is supposed to encourage). Most cars came into the pits fairly early on, resulting in an especially dull middle section of the race as drivers made sure they wouldn’t need to make a second stop. It may have been the Sakhir circuit, or it may have been the cars’ delicate aerodynamics, but the other problem was that overtaking appeared impossible. Indeed, apart from the first few corners of the first lap, and Sebastian Vettel’s enforced drop from the lead to fourth after his exhaust problems, was there any on-track overtaking at all amongst the top eight runners? This situation was ably illustrated b

The Yamaha FZ6 Fazer is no more. After a prolonged teaser campaign, Yamaha has finally revealed its replacements, the semi-faired Fazer8 and naked FZ8. As the names imply, their engines have increased in size to 779 cc, putting clearer distance between them and Yamaha’s more budget-orientated XJ6 range. The new engine isn’t actually that new, as it’s based on the 998 cc unit from the FZ1 Fazer. The capacity reduction has been achieved by decreasing the bore size, while keeping stroke the same. That approach was taken to maximise torque, a characteristic that Yamaha is emphasising for the new bikes. To a certain extent it has worked, as the Fazer8 / FZ8 produce 82 Nm of torque, compared to the 63.1 Nm of their 600 cc predecessors. It’s a partial success since it seems they are going to be needing all of that torque, as well as the extra 8ish bhp that brings power up to 104 bhp. That’s because the Fazer8 / FZ8 have grown to accommodate the larger engine. Indeed, the aluminium fr

Ford has unveiled the vehicle it hopes will take over law enforcement duties from the venerable Crown Victoria, when production of that model ceases in 2011. The Police Interceptor is a very different animal from the Crown Vic though. Instead of V8 power and body-on-frame construction, users of the Taurus-based Interceptor will get a choice of two 3.5 litre V6 engines: either 263 horsepower with front wheel drive, or 365 horsepower with all-wheel drive. The latter comes with Ford’s EcoBoost twin-turbocharger technology, which manages to increase power while equalling the fuel economy of the normally aspirated version. Despite the changes, Ford is claiming the Police Interceptor will outperform its predecessor in the areas of durability, safety and performance. “Police nationwide asked for a new kind of weapon in the battle for public safety, and Ford is answering the call with a purpose-built vehicle – engineered and built in America – that’s as dynamic as it is durable,” said