Autoblog

While Villeneuve and Montoya are adapting well to their new home in NASCAR, their German-speaking former colleagues might be headed to their own sedan-based racing series at home.

Reports indicate that, against the advice of his older brother, Ralf Schumacher climbed into the cabin of a Mercedes C-Class DTM race car for a trial test at the Estoril track on Tuesday.

Austrian driver Christian Klien, who was passed over for the last seat at Force India in favor of Giancarlo Fisichella, is believed to have also participated in the test. The Mercedes-AMG team in the popular German touring car series recently suffered the loss of Mika Hakkinen, and is tipped to be eager to replace him with another big F1 name.

[Source: Autosport]

While its cars charge towards the head of the pack on the F1 racing circuit, BMW-Sauber has been positioning itself as the champion of demonstrations off-track. Following such shenanigans as driving on ice, and the return to the old Nurburgring Nordschleife, the team brought a couple of veterans back for demonstration drives at Silverstone.

Three-time world champion Nigel Mansell, more recently a fixture of the Grand Prix Masters series, drove Sauber's latest at the team's Pit Lane Park set up at Silverstone to coincide with this past weekend's British Grand Prix. Fellow retired driver Johnny Herbert, who won at Silverstone in '95, also had a go in the Bimmer single-seater. The drivers pulled donuts and smoky burnouts to the delight of the fans.

As you may recall, the team also gave former F1 driver Alex Zanardi another drive behind the wheel of an F1 car, and the handicapped car driver pulled off some impressive lap times, despite a minimum of preparation.

[Source: BMW Sauber F1 via AutoMotoPortal]

The final version of Forza Motorsports 2 for the Xbox 360 has gone gold, which in video game parlance means its ready to be pressed into discs and shipped off to stores. While the release date for the 360's premier driving game is not until May 29th, early this morning at 5AM EST, publishers of the game released its first demo on the Xbox Live Marketplace for free. Yes, we've downloaded it and yes, we've played it. The demo offers you an assortment of about 24 cars in three different classes (think slow, fast and insane). We tried out a Ford GT in the fast class and a Maserati MC12 in the insane class. You're only able to race around one short track, which Forza faithful tell us is the Mugello short. How does it look? Probably great if it weren't for the 5-year-old, 27-inch TV our Xbox 360 is hooked up to. On a high-definition set it probably looks incredible, but on an old TV it looks like Gran Turismo 4, maybe a little sharper and more detailed, but not by much. 480 lines of interlaced resolution only go so far. Nevertheless, the choice of vehicles and tracks in the final version of the game will be impressive. Now we just have to scrounge up another $59.99 plus tax for another Xbox 360 game. Yeah, we can think of a few people who that's not going to go over too well with, but epic driving games on next-gen consoles don't come along every day.

Thanks for the tip, Matt!

[Source: Xbox360Fanboy]

A hundred horsepower isn't usually anything to write home about, but in a tiny car like the Fiat Panda it makes for a fun recipe. We've said it before and we'll say it again, we like the Fiat Panda Sport and wish we could get them here in the US.

This promo video shows the miniscule go-kart/supermini zipping around a track (admittedly not the most likely place you'll see it), and offers some odd zoom-ins and pans on such "interesting" features as the tailgate latch. All set to a bizarrely calming electronic soundtrack.

Related posts:

• Macpherson struts her stuff: Elle gets a Fiat Panda
• Paris Preview: First photo of Fiat Panda Sport
  

[Source: Motor Authority]

Didn't get enough of the brand-spankin'-new Fiat Bravo unveiled two weeks ago? Fiat'll give you a fix with this video that lets you see the new hatch spinning around for your viewing pleasure. Now you can see the Bravo from every angle and get the full scope of its lines, and not just from the angles they wanted you to see in the press images.

Whether you're sold or not on the overall package, the Bravo does have some indisputably beautiful design elements to it, and while the metallic red paintjob of this publicity model is a nice shade, we'll look forward to seeing it in other colors (medium blue will suit this car nicely). On the logo front, the new Bravo debuts Fiat's new emblem. Also, take notice of the Bravo script, where the A joins the V to form a sideways 2, signifying the second Fiat to carry the Bravo name.

As a special bonus, the video features some of that nifty fast-slow spinning action. (Not recommended for those prone to motion sickness, though the video is just a minute long.)

[Source: Fiat via Euro Car Blog]