WRC 2010 video

Yeah I thought it was cool. Congrats to Sebastian Loeb.. again.

Lamborghini Aventador shows its true self via.. Facebook?

Oh Facebook, how great you are.

The Lamborghini Club of Los Angeles managed to snap this photo of the future V12 supercar coming out of Sant'Agata Bolognese, Italy.

The LP700-4 as it stands is slated to hold the brand new V-12 slated to chuck out a jaw-dropping 700 HP and 509 Ft-Lbs of torque.  All that is going to have to lug around a feather-light carbon fiber monocoque (this has been confirmed). Sweeeeeet

Source: Car and Driver

Cadillac heralds its re-entrance into racing via CTS-V coupe

It's been 3 years since Cadillac dominated the field of the SCCA World Challenge with the CTS-V. Looks like they're looking to take it all back again.

Yesterday, General Motors announce it would re-enter the Sports Car Club of America's World Challenge via two brand-spankin new Cadillac CTS-V coupe's as prepared by the infamous Pratt & Miller.

If you don't know who Pratt & Miller is, just know that they're the ones responsible for the GT1 dominating Corvette   coupes that have dominated Le Mans for so many years.

The two CTS-V Coupe race cars will compete for the first time on March 25 in St. Petersburg, Florida with Johnny O'Connel and Andy Pilgram behind the wheel.

Source: General Motors

FIA Gala 2010-F1 season highlights video

Recently released video from the FIA recapping the 2010 F1 season. Very much worth the 10 minutes for any motorsport fan.

Racing legend Tom Walkinshaw passes away.

On Sunday, December 12th, Former racing driver, team owner and racing innovator passed away at 64 after a long battle with cancer.

Throughout his life, Walkinshaw was in charge of teams such as Benetton, Ligier and Arrows Formula One Teams. Of which he has been credited for Benetton's glorious championship winning rise to power in the 90's. However perhaps his biggest claim to fame was his spectacular technical achievements with Jaguar touring cars and sportscars.

Walkinshaw began his career as a single seat racer, winning the Scottish Formula Ford title in 1969. Eventually he began to really bring his career up in touring cars as a driver and also as a team owner. 

The highlight of his career was his innovations with Jaguar. Along with his own TWR operation, Jaguar saw its rise to a top-level sportscar racing operation.The iconic TWR Jaguar Group C cars went on to win three World Sportscar titles, and to triumph at Le Mans in 1988 and 1990.

Walkinshaw moved into F1 with Benetton as the team's engineering director in 1991. He introduced Ross Brawn, who had been TWR's designer in sportscars, to the team and set it on course for its world championship successes with Michael Schumacher.

Following the controversies of Benetton's 1994 season, Walkinshaw was moved across to the Ligier team, which was at that time also owned by Benetton boss Flavio Briatore, but this arrangement was shortlived and at the start of the following season Walkinshaw acquired a majority stake in Arrows.

He famously recruited reigning world champion Damon Hill to drive for the team in 1997, with the combination nearly winning the Hungarian Grand Prix. Arrows was one of the first to use Bridgestone tyres, with Walkinshaw having been played an integral role in convincing the Japanese company to rejoin F1 a year earlier than it had originally intended.

Walkinshaw had remained active in other forms of motor racing even while involved in F1, with TWR bringing Volvo into the British Touring Car Championship - initially with an estate car - and ultimately winning the title.

Financial problems saw both the Arrows team and TWR fold in 2002, but Walkinshaw remained involved in motorsport, continuing to run a team in V8 Supercars in Australia. He made his final visit to an F1 race at this year's British Grand Prix.

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Forza Motorsports 4 trailer released, date set for Fall 2011

So it doesn't exactly take a brain scientist to figure out that just in the time between the release of Gran Turismo 4and 5, the entire Forza series has risen from inception. Now that GT5 released last month, two years after the last in the Forza series, looks like Turn 10 studios already has the Forza 3 successor in on the board.

From the looks of the Teaser Trailer Forza 4 should host new racing styles, new tracks, more cars and hopefully more absolutely stunning graphics.

Lets just hope it doesn't take 15 release dates to actually get it out there.

Source: Forza Motorsport

Stare down....

I'm one hell of a Senna fan and this picture really epitomizes it all. I wonder how the camera man felt when he took this picture.

FIA confirms 2013 will have crappy engines.

Okay, I'm being judgmental and naive but who cares.

The FIA WMSC (World Motorsport Council) has officially approved the idea of switching over to greener engines. switching out the 2.4L V8's with 1.6L 4-cylinder engines. There is nothing mentioned about turbo's but I sure hope they decide to throw so forced induction on this.

Also engine speed will be dropped from the current 18,000 RPM to 12,000 RPM's

They claim that there will be a 35 percent reduction in fuel consumption while offering the same performance of the current engines, I call shenanigans.

Also teams will be limited to just 5 engines per season instead of 8.

Source: Formula One

Audi raises the roof, unveiling R18

Just as rumors speculated, Audi did in fact unveil the R18 yesterday. Sorry it took me a little while to get this up here, I knew about it yesterday, just didn't get around to it till today, and quite frankly, I gave up pretty quick on trying to write a blog on my phone.

Anyway, lets cut the crap and talk about this thing. 

First things first, damn, look at those lights! I think they're Le Mans tactic this next year is to just blind anyone in front of them.

The most notable change is clearly, there's a roof. After viciously denying the use of a close-cockpit races, Audi finally fell into after they were defeated in 2009 at the 24 Hours and also the Petit Le Mans of 2009 and 2010 by those French bastards  Peugeots. With that fact it also came as no surprise that Audi had started working on the successor  to the R15 mid-2009.

Dr. Wolfgang Ulrich, head of Audi motorsport went out during the unveiling at a press conference saying ""In the future, aerodynamic efficiency will be even more important at Le Mans than it was in the past, a closed car has clear advantages in this respect. Our computer simulations have been confirmed in the wind tunnel and during initial track tests."

Among other aero features such as a F1-style sharks-fin fairing, which makes me wonder about the use a the F-duct system from F1 as well.

Another huge change, this car is packing a 3.7 Liter V6 TDI engine, 2 cylinders down from its past predecessor and 4 cylinders from the one before that. Though there are no specs out for HP, torque and all that other fun stuff, I'm sure it wont be something to cry over. 

The loss of cylinders may not be a huge impact since weight has also been cut down drastically by the use a of a one-piece carbon fiber monocoque construction. This will probably make it indestructible against zombies and such as well.

Furthermore, Dr. Martin Muhlmeier, Head of Engineering for Audi Sport also said "In 2010 the tires were a really crucial topic which caused us to fall a little behind our competitor, This mustn't happen again."

If you really want to read it, you can read the official press release via autoblog because thats the only place I could find it.

JK, I found it here too: Audi Motorsport.

Source: Planet Le Mans

BMW M1, for all you M3 drivers who want to be more cool.

We've all been waiting for it and the wait is finally over, BMW's 2012 M1 coupe is here and from the sounds of it.

After watching all the teaser videos and hearing rumors and seeing pictures, the kind folks over at Autoblog managed to get their hands on it. 

The car utilizes uses BMW's twin-turbocharged 3.0-liter inline-six, and while early estimates had the car pumping out as much as 350 horsepower, turns out is something more like 335 hp and 332 pound-feet of torque. Though, BMW still has a few more tricks up their sleeve with the car's ECU sporting an overboost function that provides an additional 37 lb-ft balls when you want and with your foot pressed hard into the right pedal, 0-60 will happen in just 4.7 seconds. Top speed however is electronically limited at 155 miles per hour.

Apparently the only transmission available is a six-speed manual, there might be a possible twin-clutch DCT slush-box making its way into the car down the road. 

Rumors say its a little short on go-fast juice but I won't say till I've driven one; which more then likely be never.

Source: BMW, Autoblog