Mercedes GLS

Believe it or not, the BMW X6 has become quite an inspiration for BMW’s biggest competitors. Audi has already announced that they will be producing the Q6 as a competitor for the X6, now it seems that Mercedes has similar plans. Their model X6 competitor will be called the GLS and it’s scheduled to launch sometime in 2014.

The new Mercedes GLS will be built on the same platform as the ML-Class (pictured) and will feature a sporting four-seat interior, with a racier roofline and styling cues from the CLS saloon. The engine line-up will include a turbocharged 3.5L V6 and 4.6L V8 petrol engine, as well as a 3.0L V6 diesel. Of course, there will also be an AMG version that will get a turbocharged 5.5-liter V8.

According to a Mercedes insider quoted by Autocar: "After closely monitoring sales trends, we?ve concluded there is potential for an additional off-road model with a more sporting emphasis than the new M-class."

Mercedes GLS originally appeared on topspeed.com on Tuesday, 21 June 2011 22:00 EST.

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Source: http://www.topspeed.com/cars/mercedes/2014-mercedes-gls-ar111521.html

Cecil Green Keith Greene Masten Gregory Cliff Griffith Georges Grignard

Paul di Resta - classic F1 2011

Scotland's Paul di Resta, who has made such an impressive start to his grand prix career with Force India this season, is the latest driver to feature in our revised classic Formula 1 series.

Ahead of the Canadian Grand Prix, the 25-year-old has picked his five favourite all-time F1 races. We will broadcast highlights of each of his choices in this blog and on the BBC red button to whet your appetites for the action to come in Montreal this weekend.

Di Resta follows in the footsteps of Sebastian Vettel, Michael Schumacher, Sebastien Buemi, Rubens Barrichello, Fernando Alonso and Nick Heidfeld so far this season.

The drivers have all taken a different approach to this task. Vettel, for example, picked only races from his own career, while the others drivers we have showcased so far have all to one degree or another chosen a mix of races in which they featured and ones from before their own time in the sport.

Di Resta has raced in only seven grands prix so far, so it is no surprise that four of his five choices are from the archive.

His first is this year's Australian Grand Prix - after all, a driver will always remember his F1 debut fondly.

The rest are as follows:

The 1968 German Grand Prix, which has gone down in history as one of the great Jackie Stewart's most extraordinary victories, and one of the greatest of all time.

Di Resta says he "read about it in Jackie's autobiography - sounded exciting". The race, memorably described by Stewart himself, was held in teeming rain and dense fog, and Stewart was in a league of his own, winning by four minutes in his Matra.

The next choice is the 1979 French Grand Prix, famous for the thrilling duel over second place between Ferrari's Gilles Villeneuve and Renault's Rene Arnoux in the final three laps, the two men passing and re-passing, banging wheels in lurid, thrilling fashion, until Villeneuve finally prevailed.

It was one of the iconic Villeneuve's landmark performances, a man of sublime talent transcending the limitations of his machinery and taking on faster cars.

A similar description can be applied to Di Resta's next choice, the 1993 European Grand Prix at Donington Park, which has entered F1 folklore as one of the late Ayrton Senna's greatest wins.

In a race of constantly changing conditions, Senna moved from fifth to first in the course of a stunning first lap and raced off into a league of his own. Such was his superiority that at one point he had lapped the entire field.

Finally, Di Resta has chosen the climax to the 2008 world title fight at the Brazilian Grand Prix, when, as he puts it, "the championship went to the last corner".

Many will recall that Ferrari's Felipe Massa would overhaul McLaren's Lewis Hamilton and take the title if the Brazilian could win, with Hamilton finishing lower than fifth.

Massa completed his part of the bargain and, as he crossed the line to take the chequered flag, Hamilton was down in sixth place, having recently been passed by Toro Rosso's Vettel.

In the Ferrari pit they celebrated, but with rain falling all was not lost for Hamilton. Ahead of him the Toyotas, which had decided not to stop for wet-weather tyres, were struggling, and the Englishman passed the gripless Timo Glock at the last corner of the race to sneak the place he needed.

As regular readers will know, we pick one of the driver's choices to highlight and I have to admit that the initial inclination was to run Di Resta's choices ahead of the German Grand Prix and show the '68 race at the Nurburgring.

Highlights of that race do not exist in the BBC archive, though, so instead we have moved Di Resta to Canada and chosen the '79 French race because of Villeneuve, after whom Canada's F1 track is named.

So the full 'Grand Prix' highlights programme broadcast on the evening of that race is embedded below - it has never been shown since that day 32 years ago.

Beneath it are links to long and short highlights of last year's Canadian Grand Prix. It was arguably the best race of the season last year, featuring a thrilling battle between all five of the men who fought out the championship - Hamilton, his McLaren team-mate Jenson Button, Alonso's Ferrari and the Red Bull drivers Vettel and Mark Webber.

In order to see this content you need to have both Javascript enabled and Flash installed. Visit BBC Webwise for full instructions. If you're reading via RSS, you'll need to visit the blog to access this content.


CLICK HERE TO WATCH SHORT HIGHLIGHTS OF THE 2010 CANADIAN GRAND PRIX
CLICK HERE TO WATCH EXTENDED HIGHLIGHTS OF THE 2010 CANADIAN GRAND PRIX

The details for the BBC red button on digital television in the UK are as follows:

Long highlights from France 1979, short highlights of Europe 1993, Brazil 2008 and Australia 2011 plus extended highlights of the Canadian Grand Prix 2010 will be broadcast on satellite and cable from 1500 BST on Wednesday 8 June until 1700 BST on Sunday 12 June.

Unfortunately, a lack of bandwidth because of the Queens tennis tournament means we are unable to broadcast these highlights on Freeview.

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/andrewbenson/2011/06/paul_di_resta_-_classic_f1.html

Walt Brown Warwick Brown Adolf Brudes Martin Brundle Gianmaria Bruni

A chance of a lifetime to join an F1 team

Two of the UK-based Formula 1 teams ? Mercedes GP Petronas and Team Lotus – are each inviting two members of the public to join their respective pit crews at forthcoming events, as part of National Motorsport Week. The four lucky winners joining either Team Lotus or Mercedes GP Petronas for a memorable day will [...]

Source: http://joesaward.wordpress.com/2011/06/20/a-chance-in-a-lifetime-to-join-an-f1-team/

Kurt Kuhnke Masami Kuwashima Robert La Caze Jacques Laffite Franck Lagorce

More details on the future Audi S8, S7, S6, and RS6

Audi is preparing a strong offensive line in hopes of achieving greatness in the sports car market. In the upcoming months, the company plans to reveal four new sports sedans to complete their all-star team.

The first teammate will be the S8, which will be launched at the Frankfurt Motor Show this fall. The S8 will feature a new 4.0 liter, twin-turbo V8 engine developed in cooperation with Bentley. This new engine will deliver a total of 493 HP - an increase of about 50 HP over the current S8 model - but will also have a fuel improvement of about 20%. The engine will be mated to an 8-speed automatic gearbox and Quattro all-wheel drive system.

About two months after the S8 has its time in the spotlight, Audi will present the S6 and the S7 at the Los Angeles Auto Show. The two models will also get the new 4.0 liter V8 engine with an output of 434 HP in the S6 and 464 HP in the S7.

The true all-star on this team, however, will be the RS6. It will also get the 4.0 liter, twin-turbo V8 engine, but with tweaks to increase the power to an impressive 572 HP. The bad news, though, is that Audi will be saving the best for last and we won’t get to see the Audi RS6 until late 2012. The BMW M5 will be able to enjoy its lead in the rankings until then.

More details on the future Audi S8, S7, S6, and RS6 originally appeared on topspeed.com on Friday, 17 June 2011 16:00 EST.

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Source: http://www.topspeed.com/cars/car-news/more-details-on-the-future-audi-s8-s7-s6-and-rs6-ar111398.html

Patrick Gaillard Divina Galica Nanni Galli Oscar Alfredo Gálvez Fred Gamble