Rosberg answers critics in emphatic style

Nico Rosberg looks every inch the archetypal image of a grand prix driver - blonde, good looking, perfect smile, the lot. And in Shanghai on Sunday, at the 111th attempt, he finally delivered the most important part of the package - the perfect win.

It has been a long time coming.

This is the 26-year-old German's seventh season of F1 and while Lewis Hamilton, who was his team-mate when they were teenage karters 12 years ago, was a winner almost from the start of his Formula 1 career, Rosberg's route to the top step of the podium has been somewhat more torturous.

So torturous, in fact, that there have been times when some wondered whether he would ever follow his father Keke in becoming a race winner.

Nico Rosberg's dominant victory in China ensured he has become the first son of a living grand prix winner to follow in his father's footsteps - and only the third ever. The fathers of Damon Hill and Jacques Villeneuve were killed when their son were children.

Keke Rosberg also had to wait a long time to stand on the top step of the podium - his first victory came in his fifth season.

Like Nico, that was Keke's first year in a competitive car, and he ended it as world champion. It seems unlikely at this stage that Nico will follow his father in that sense, too, but after such a dominant win it certainly cannot be completely ruled out.

Nico Rosberg led from pole position to score Mercedes' first victory since the 1955 Italian Grand Prix. Photo: Getty

Watching Rosberg's assured driving as he drove away from team-mate Michael Schumacher in the early laps, and then proceeded to control the race, it seems strange to think that there have long been questions about his ultimate standing as a true world-class grand prix driver. But there have, and to some extent they remain still.

There is no doubt about the calibre of Rosberg's win on Sunday, but it remains difficult to be absolutely sure of his ultimate potential.

He is clearly very fast - but just how fast is not completely clear. Likewise, it remains to be seen whether he possesses all the other qualities that make up a great grand prix driver.

So far, for example, he has appeared to be the sort of driver who will deliver to the potential of his car - but not one who is able to transcend it occasionally, in the manner of Hamilton or Fernando Alonso.

In his debut year, he was generally marginally out-paced by Mark Webber, his team-mate at Williams at the time. And for the rest of Rosberg's career there before joining Mercedes in 2010 he was partnered with journeymen drivers and in uncompetitive cars.

Rosberg has dominated his Mercedes team-mate Michael Schumacher in qualifying since then, but it is clear to most that the seven-time champion is not the same driver he was before he retired in 2006 and spent three years on the sidelines. And until Sunday, Schumacher had generally matched Rosberg for race pace since last season.

The improved performance of Mercedes this year will finally give Rosberg the chance to go wheel-to-wheel with the top drivers on a consistent basis for the first time, so a clearer picture may well emerge.

A first win, especially one so impressive, will do wonders for his confidence, although he has never lacked for that.

Rosberg is a highly intelligent man, who was planning on a degree in engineering had he not become a Formula 1 driver. He is an individual character, and can be a prickly interviewee.

It may be that will change now he will no longer be faced with endless questions about whether he believes he can be a winner.

He could not have answered them in more emphatic style.

If Schumacher had thought Rosberg's 0.5 seconds a lap advantage in qualifying was a one-off based on a unique set of circumstances, he was soon disabused of that belief in the race as the younger German sprinted off into the distance, building a five-second lead in the first 10 laps.

That margin was the foundation for his win, but it was not as if Rosberg then spent the rest of the afternoon hanging on in front of faster cars.

After the first pit stops, Jenson Button was up into a de facto second place and in clear air, but Rosberg continued to pull away, although he was on the faster tyre. Button came back at him before the McLaren driver made his second stop, but only marginally.

Had the mechanic fitting Button's left rear tyre not suffered a problem with a cross-threaded wheel nut at his final stop, the Englishman would have rejoined about 14 seconds behind Rosberg with 19 laps to go.

Button's pace on the slower tyre suggests that he would have closed on Rosberg at that stage, but whether it would have been quickly enough is a moot point.

McLaren team principal Martin Whitmarsh admitted: "I think it would have been very difficult to beat him."

Where have a team who have gone backwards in the first two races found that pace from? Both Rosberg and Mercedes sports boss Norbert Haug had a simple explanation - set-up changes allowing better use of the tyres.

They had used them too much in the first race in Australia and not worked them enough in the second in Malaysia. Here in Shanghai they found a middle way.

Behind Rosberg was a fantastic scrap for second place, what Haug described as "one of the best races I have ever seen".

Recounting the story of Red Bull's race from ninth and 14th places on the first lap to fourth and fifth at the flag, team boss Christian Horner said he sounded "like a horse racing commentator".

The championship is clearly going to be very close and it is setting up what look set to be a superb season.

"We've had three very different races," Whitmarsh said, "and I think this is going to be a season where potentially we have 20 very different races.

"It's fascinating, really. I enjoy it and I'm sure people watching it enjoy it. Who's going to predict who's going to win in Bahrain?"

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/andrewbenson/2012/04/rosberg_answers_critics_in_emp.html

Torsten Palm Jonathan Palmer Olivier Panis Giorgio Pantano Massimiliano Papis

Porsche GT1 EVO WIP

I could not believe my eyes when my wife said to me in the toy section of Valu Village; "  They have a couple of models over here honey"  My eyes darn near popped out of my head and when I opened the box thinking all the while this is too good to be true and then I see that the trees are still in their individual bags from the factory!!!...... well, I had to pick my jaw up out of the box.  And the price!!!  $3.99!!!  I was so stoked by the time I got out of there that it was all I could do to not go home right there and then and start it. That was my first visit to our new outlet here and I have been in there many times since and have not seen any kits at all. Talk about beginners luck. I have always wanted to do this model but the price has always been way past my budget whenever I did see it.  Finally! I have it!

Source: http://cs.scaleautomag.com/SCACS/forums/thread/1014447.aspx

John CampbellJones Adrián Campos John Cannon Eitel Cantoni Bill Cantrell

Four different winners - now pick a champion

McLaren team boss Martin Whitmarsh probably summed up the new Formula 1 season best in the wake of Sunday's Bahrain Grand Prix.

"Who's going to predict who's going to win the next race?" Whitmarsh pondered after Red Bull's Sebastian Vettel had become the fourth different driver, for the fourth different team, to win in the first four races. "It could be Red Bull, Lotus, Mercedes, Ferrari, us."

A Formula 1 season has not started in such an unpredictable fashion for 29 years.

Back in 1983, Brabham's Nelson Piquet, McLaren's John Watson, Renault's Alain Prost and Ferrari's Patrick Tambay were the men in question. Only Watson did not go on to be a major contender for the rest of the season, which featured a four-way title fight between Piquet, Prost, Tambay and the second Ferrari driver Rene Arnoux.


Fernando Alonso

Fernando Alonso's Ferrari may not be the best car, but he is making it a contender. Photo: AFP

This year, the winners have been McLaren's Jenson Button, Ferrari's Fernando Alonso, Mercedes driver Nico Rosberg and Vettel.

Paradoxically, though, on the balance of form over the four races, you would probably say that of those four only Button and Vettel will definitely be championship contenders.

Rosberg's Mercedes car is clearly quick, at least in qualifying, but its race pace has been inconsistent. Alonso has been driving brilliantly in the Ferrari - but on current form the car is nowhere near good enough to mount a title challenge.

THE SEASON SO FAR

For all the unpredictability of the results, and the thrilling spectacle of the races themselves, the same drivers and teams who have dominated F1 in recent years fill the top five positions in the championship.

Victory in Bahrain vaulted Vettel into the lead, ahead of McLaren's Lewis Hamilton, Red Bull's second driver Mark Webber, Button and Alonso.

Of those, Alonso's position is the most remarkable.

At best, the Ferrari is the fifth fastest car behind the Red Bull, McLaren, Lotus and Mercedes. And there have been times when it was probably the seventh fastest - behind also the Williams and Sauber.

Yet the Spaniard has won a race and conceded only 10 points to the world championship leader after four grands prix.

This stunning demonstration of consistency and skill is why it would be hard to look past Alonso if there was an award for driver of the year so far.

If he is to be a title contender this year, though, much depends on the major car upgrades Ferrari are planning to introduce for the next race in Spain - and which will be tried out for the first time at the official F1 test in Mugello next week.

If these do not give Ferrari a significant boost in performance, even Alonso will drift out of contention and, presumably, be overtaken soon by the drivers immediately behind him in the championship - Rosberg and Lotus's Kimi Raikkonen

MOST IMPROVED TEAMS - AND OTHERWISE

Just as Alonso is artificially high in the championship - at least in terms of the quality of the car he is driving - so Raikkonen and, arguably, Rosberg are artificially low.

It has been clear from the beginning of the season that the Lotus is one of the very fastest cars on the grid - but scrappy weekends at the first three races prevented the team from scoring strong results.

In Bahrain they finally got it together, and Raikkonen and team-mate Romain Grosjean finished second and third behind Vettel. As BBC F1 technical analyst Gary Anderson explained in his race review, the Finn might well have won.

According to figures compiled by Anderson, Lotus are second only to Caterham in a table that compares their performance last year to this.

Mercedes are some way down the list - but have definitely made more progress than any of the other traditional top teams. Ferrari are at the bottom.

The difficulty in assessing Mercedes' potential, though, is that for all their impressive performance in taking pole and victory in China, their form in the other races has been poor.

The Mercedes is quick in qualifying - thanks in part, no doubt, to its controversial 'double DRS' system - but they are the team whose performance deteriorates the most from practice and qualifying to race.

You can be sure a lot of their work at the Mugello test next week will be focused on this phenomenon.

The next-worst team on this criterion, incidentally, are McLaren.

THE TITLE BATTLE

Ferrari are the most consistent top team (and behind only Sauber) in terms of form from practice to race - a measure of how close a team gets to extracting the maximum from their car.

Red Bull are pretty close behind, even though it took the world champions until the fourth race of the season to record their first win.

One of the reasons teams have been struggling with consistency - both from race to race and within a weekend - is that they are finding it difficult to get the best out of the Pirelli tyres this year.

As Button has said: "Last year, we knew the tyres had high degradation but we understood them. This year, I don't really know what to make of the tyres."

Teams are struggling to keep the tyres in the right window of operating temperature, and different cars work them better in different ambient temperatures. Circuit characteristics also play a role.

Mercedes, for example, have been suffering problems with rear-tyre usage. So China was perfect for them. It was run in cool conditions on a circuit that is 'front-limited' - the front tyres tend to go off first.

Red Bull, by contrast, were struggling to get their car to work properly in China, and the result was their worst qualifying performance of the year. The race was less problematic, but Red Bull's race pace has been strong all year.

In the hotter conditions of Bahrain, on a 'rear-limited' track, Mercedes struggled and Red Bull shone.

Until Bahrain, McLaren had coped pretty well with the varying conditions from race to race, but their struggles with rear tyre wear in Bahrain will have set alarm bells ringing.

PICKING A FAVOURITE

Vettel predicted in Bahrain that, because the teams are all so close in terms of competitiveness, changing conditions will continue to have an effect on form throughout the season.

His team principal Christian Horner added that the season would "ebb and flow".

"It is a matter," Horner said, "of trying to be consistent at the races you can't win and take the maximum out of them. And at the races you can, you need to deliver."

So who is the favourite?

Before Bahrain, you would probably have said one of the McLaren drivers. Now, you might be tempted to say Vettel.

But what about Webber, who has had the edge on Vettel in three of the four races? Or Raikkonen? Or even Alonso, if Ferrari can effect a turnaround with the car.

One thing is clear - it's all very different from last year, when by this stage it was already blindingly obvious that Vettel was going to be champion.

As to who it will be this time, as Hamilton has said: "It's anyone's at the moment."

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/andrewbenson/2012/04/four_different_winners_-_now_p.html

George Connor George Constantine John Cordts David Coulthard Piers Courage

Rosberg shines after my Shanghai shenanigans

I've just achieved a minor miracle here at Shanghai airport - managing to get changed in the tiniest toilet cubicle imaginable before checking in for my flight to Abu Dhabi, and ultimately Bahrain.

The reason it was so tough is that I had my two-weeks-away-from-home suitcase and my laptop bag and I was also trying not to drop my new maroon velvet jacket onto the toilet floor. I wouldn't want to get such a beautiful piece of clothing soiled now, would I?

If you don't know what I'm talking about, take a look at the video below and you can see our 'Sex and the City' opener from Sunday's first live race show of 2012.

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It was a fun morning's filming actually, the low point being Eddie Jordan's well-intentioned but rather unconventional offer of breakfast. You see, we filmed most of that opening skit on Friday morning and it required an early start.

I stay with the production team at most races while Eddie and David Coulthard often stay somewhere else (usually with softer beds and more powerful showers).

So at half six on Friday morning, the crew and I set off in the minibus from our hotel near the track and headed for the Shanghai rush-hour: four-lane highways criss-crossing the city, all of them busy, most of them full of stationary traffic.

Eventually we arrived at EJ and DC's place and they came down to join us. Eddie turned up, dumped his bag and immediately disappeared back into the hotel.

As we were wondering where he was and what he was doing, he returned with a small brown bag and proceeded to dish out a pilfered breakfast.

I am afraid to say I rejected the small piece of brown bread with a single limp rasher of bacon, squished in Eddie's grip and thrust in my face. But fair play to the crew and DC for accepting his offer.

I also blame our exhaustion for the fact we ended up going down the 'Sex and the City' route as it was suggested by Ian the cameraman on the bus as a joke, and suddenly Dave the incredibly creative VT producer had seized on it.

The shoot itself was fun. One of the things I've missed in the first two races is the time spent with EJ and DC. There just isn't the time on a highlights show to transmit long, involved opening pieces and so I relished being back with the guys doing what we enjoy.

It was fantastic to be back in the old routine, prowling the pit-lane hoovering up the stories. I particularly enjoyed showing Ross Brawn the footage of the 1957 Mercedes win in Monza, and sharing with you at home the story of the first pole position for Nico Rosberg's father Keke.

I think it's these kinds of things that add depth to our coverage, put the events in perspective, and also inject a human element into such a technical sport.

And what a race it was by Nico in the Mercedes. It was a real shame for team-mate Michael Schumacher, but while he and Jenson Button shared pit-lane problems, and the rest of the field indulged in some classic racing, Nico simply drove the perfect race.

Maybe a late overtake such as Jenson's in Canada in 2011, or defensive brilliance such as Sebastian Vettel's in Spain last year is a more exciting way to win a race. But the manner in which Nico did it demonstrated complete dominance by car and driver. That is what the F1 community strive to achieve every week.

I'm not sure what was in DC's mid-race cuppa, but remarkably on the F1 Forum, he was the one diving in to grab Nico, in true EJ style. Before we know it he'll be wearing mad shirts and getting members of the Beatles muddled up!

I'm now in the airport and our flight leaves in about 45 minutes so I'd better sign off. Incidentally every time a plane takes off the roof of this place rattles rather violently. I'm hoping it's just a design issue.

I don't know what has happened to the rest of our team, but on the bus, nine out of 11 people were fast asleep - so don't be in any doubt that they've been doing their bit for you today.

Before I sign off, a word on Bahrain.

There has been much said about the next grand prix on the 2012 schedule, including significant coverage of the issue across the BBC's news outlets.

We felt it was important in our show that we put the relevant questions to F1 boss Bernie Ecclestone not just on the decision to race but also the motivation behind it.

Whether it is the right decision to stage the race is not for me to answer. I've had many
people ask whether I am happy to go. Of course I have safety concerns personally - but we are journalists. The BBC's role, as part of a free media, is to chronicle the big stories and events and we take great pride in transmitting the most significant moments in F1 to your living rooms.

Next weekend is arguably one of the most important in the history of F1. All eyes will be on Bahrain so it's essential we are there too, to accurately and honestly reflect the events both on track and off.

Thanks for tuning in this weekend and for making us the number one trending topic on Twitter in the UK on Sunday morning.

But the real story was Nico Rosberg. After 111 races, the wait is finally over.

See you in the desert.

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/jakehumphrey/2012/04/rosberg_shines_after_shanghai.html

Andrea Chiesa Ettore Chimeri Louis Chiron Joie Chitwood Bob Christie

Report: Audi Cans Electric A2 and A1 e-tron

1. 1.

Audi has been experimenting with the electric-car market for a few years and officially unveiled plans for the A1 e-tron and an electric-powered A2 recently. It does not look like either one is going to happen any time soon, according to a report from Car.

The A2 electric was slated to be released in Europe, where high-efficiency diesel and gasoline engines that get upwards of 60 mpg reign supreme. These markets are tough enough to crowbar in an electric model, but add in the fact that the A2 was expected to carry a ?40,000 ($50,000) price tag, and you get a model that was bound to fail in the European marketplace. Combine that price point with the fact that the Nissan Leaf, with its far lower ?25,990 ($32,500) price tag, only saw 3,000 units leave showroom floors in 2011, and Audi wisely saw this as a fruitless journey.

The entire A2 line will likely continue as expected, sans the electric model. This leaves a gasoline and diesel model as the only drivetrain options.

The A1 e-tron reportedly is meeting a similar fate, but for different reasons. The A1 e-tron is being axed due to extravagantly high production costs. This car was planned to be similar to the Chevy Volt, as it was going to have a gasoline engine to extend the range of its electric motor by charging the batteries via a Wankel (rotary) engine.

Though this is a tragic way to abruptly cease the development phase for an electric lineup, we cannot blame Audi for its choice. Electric cars just are not selling well in the European markets and having one priced nearly double its closest competitor and another one with climbing production costs just isn?t smart business.

Report: Audi Cans Electric A2 and A1 e-tron originally appeared on topspeed.com on Wednesday, 6 June 2012 09:00 EST.

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Source: http://www.topspeed.com/cars/car-news/report-audi-cans-electric-a2-and-a1-e-tron-ar130549.html

Jacques Villeneuve Jacques Villeneuve Sr Luigi Villoresi Emilio de Villota Ottorino Volonterio

Mercedes-Benz C63 AMG Performance Studio Edition


The Mercedes C63 AMG is arguably one of the most popular models in the Mercedes AMG line-up. But that isn’t stopping the German automaker to treating its Japanese customer base with a special edition model called the C63 AMG Performance Studio Edition.

Comprised of a comprehensive modification that includes work done on the outside, inside, and engine, the C63 AMG Performance Studio Edition is turning out to become quite a prize for the Japanese folks. It also figures that with all the special edition BMW M3’s out on the market, Mercedes would love to join in on the party with this bad boy, right?

The first thing you’ll notice is the matte black finish given to the car, which is never a bad thing as far as we’re concerned. Mercedes also added a carbon trunk lid spoiler, unique exhaust tailpipes, a new set of 19" multi-spoke black alloy wheels with a red rim, and red brake calipers. Inside, the modifications continue with an interior that’s been dressed in red and black nappa leather with matching red accent stitching. In addition, there’s also a carbon fiber decorative trim, hand-crafted AMG floor mats with nappa leather piping, AMG door lock pins, and a standard Harman Kardon Logic 7 surround sound system.

As far as the engine goes, Mercedes gave the C63 AMG’s 6.2-liter V8 engine with a nice power upgrade, resulting in an increased output of 480 horsepower, up from the standard model’s 451-horsepower output.

The car, like we said, is exclusive to the Japanese market. Pricing has been announced at 15 million Yen, which is about $192,000 based on current exchange rates. Deliveries are scheduled to begin in November 2012.

Mercedes-Benz C63 AMG Performance Studio Edition originally appeared on topspeed.com on Tuesday, 5 June 2012 18:00 EST.

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Source: http://www.topspeed.com/cars/mercedes/2013-mercedes-benz-c63-amg-performance-studio-edition-ar130552.html

Walt Brown Warwick Brown Adolf Brudes Martin Brundle Gianmaria Bruni