Autoblog

Click above for high-res gallery of the 2008 Spanish Grand Prix

Formula One is fast, and fast is dangerous. That's the assumption formed on the basis of decades of fatal crashes in the sport when the slow advancement of safety measures couldn't keep up with the ever-increasing speeds of grand prix racing. But those assumptions and those safety measures were again put to the test this weekend in Spain, where McLaren's Heikki Kovalainen crashed at 220 km/h (137mph) into a wall of tires, resulting in an estimated impact force of 26 Gs. The crash, which occurred on the 22nd lap of the race, was attributed to a wheel/tire malfunction, and Kovalainen is expected to return in two weeks to race in Turkey.

As jarring as it was, Heikki's crash was only one of the many times the safety car was deployed in a race that was dominated by the color yellow of the caution flag. The next most dominant color at Catalunya, however, was surely red, as Ferrari dominated the race virtually from start to finish, with Kimi Raikkonen sailing to an easy checkered flag with his team mate Felipe Massa close behind. Towards the end of the race, Kovalainen's teammate Lewis Hamilton was closing in on Massa, but ended up taking the third step on the podium, giving defending champion Raikkonen a commanding nine point lead over Hamilton. The perfect finish for Ferrari likewise gave the team a commanding lead in the constructors' championship, leading 47 to BMW Sauber's 35 and McLaren's 34. BMW, which entered the race with the lead for the constructors' title, didn't fair as well as hoped, with Kubica finishing an admirable fourth while his teammate Heidfeld came in outside the points in 9th after suffering a drive-through penalty. However, that wasn't nearly as bad as second-tier rival Renault did under the Spanish sun, with neither local hero Fernando Alonso nor his teammate Nelsinho Piquet completing the race. All in all, a shocking nine drivers retired before the last lap, including Nico Rosberg (Williams), Rubens Barrichello (Honda), Adrian Sutil (Force India), Anthony Davidson (Super Aguri), both the Toro Rosso drivers (Bourdais and Vettel) in addition to the Renaults and the aforementioned Kovalainen.

Follow the jump for the full results, current standings after four rounds of the 2008 FIA Formula One World Championship and a video of Kovalainen's crash.

[Source: Autosport]

Click either image for a gallery.

When the Singapore F1 Grand Prix begins on September 28th, it will feature the first application of Digiflags, 35 large screens that can display the different flag colors, making it easier for racers to know what's going on while speeding down the track. The system will be used in conjunction with traditional flags, but separate track marshals posted through the circuit will control the electronic boards as the race hums wails along. But fear not, the checkered flag remains, and will be waved from a podium on high when the Singapore F1 race ends.

The full press release is posted below the fold.

Racing fans were excited at the announcement that Singapore would join the 2008 Formula One calendar as the series' first night race. But it's one thing to make the announcement, quite another to actually pull it off.

Lighting up a road circuit in the middle of a bustling city is not like lighting up an outdoor stadium or even an oval speedway. The track snakes along over three miles through downtown Singapore, and needs to be lit up enough to provide sufficient visibility for the drivers, spectators and television cameras, all the while minimizing glare off potentially wet surfaces. To execute the illumination, the organizers turned to Italian lighting specialists Valerio Maioli SpA, who worked up a custom lighting system just for the Singapore Grand Prix.

The system devised for the event will consist of some 1600 lighting projectors, hanging in clusters 10 meters above the surface on 240 steel pilings placed 32 meters apart from each other around the circuit and connected by over 100,000 meters of cable. The system will draw 3.18 Megawatts of electricity from 12 pairs of generators encased in sound-proof containers, each with its own engineer on standby in case anything should go wrong. Although the run-off areas will be illuminated as well, the lighting will be dimmer than the track surface to avoid confusion for the drivers. That's a pretty impressive system, which all in all will be four times brighter than the lighting in an ordinary stadium.

[Source: GrandPrix.com]

Click image to view in high resolution

With revenues and attendance declining, Merlbourne's Albert Park circuit is in danger of losing the Australian Grand Prix to another venue Down Under, but the organizers aren't giving up without a fight. With cash from title sponsor ING, which has been pouring big bucks into its F1 sponsorship program, the 2008 Australian Grand Prix is gearing up to be a huge spectacle that will include a V8 Supercars race and even a two-hour KISS concert in addition to the headline Formula One contest. Now the organizers have added another supporting event that will mark the first time the Fiat 500 will be raced.

The race-prepped retro-minis will be the car of choice for the Celebrity Challenge, which pits local Australian celebrities against each other on the race track. Although no information has been provided on what sort of race preparation the Fiats will undergo for the event, we wouldn't expect the modifications to go far beyond basic safety equipment, like a roll cage and racing buckets with competition harnesses visible in the photos.

In addition to being the 500's racing debut, the event will also mark the car's unveiling for Australia and New Zealand, as well as the debut of the right-hand-drive version of the tiny Fiat.

Scheduling conflicts between the Grand Prix and the V8 Supercars series were reconciled to allow the two races to take place together, while race officials denied rumors that they were intent on following Singapore's lead in changing the Australian Grand Prix to a flood-lit night race.

Check out the images in the high-resolution gallery below, and the full press release after the jump.

[Source: ING Australian Grand Prix via World Car Fans]

Scott Speed's climb through the Red Bull Young Driver's Program was a great deal more promising -- and lengthy -- than his actual Formula 1 career. As of today, the 24-year-old Californian has been replaced in his Scuderia Toro Rosso seat by former BMW test driver Sebastian Vettel. Vettel, a 20-year-old German, is highly regarded by STR half-owner Gerhard Berger, and will race in this week's Hungarian GP.

Speed's tenure has been a forgettable year-and-a-half of no results and more than a few skirmishes and crashes -- not all of which are entirely Speed's fault. Even the Red Bull cars, piloted by the much more experienced Mark Weber and David Coulthard, haven't shown too much life. The drama has been stoked by the STR team owners', Berger and Franz Tost, increasingly acidic and public comments about how displeased they are with the STR driver lineup. Things reached a nadir when, after Speed's exit from the European Grand Prix, he was physically assaulted by Tost.

Speed says he doesn't want to want to ruin his relationship with parent team Red Bull, and would work with them even if not in Formula 1 -- but he wouldn't race for STR again for any amount of money. As for the premiere motorsport category, with Speed's ouster, the record of American drivers in F1 remains, uh, nothing short of dismal.

Thanks to everyone who sent this in.

[Source: Daily F1]

The NHTSA has commenced an "engineering analysis" of GM's supercharged 3800 Series II V6 engine. Fitted to certain 1999-2002 models, such as the Pontiac Grand Prix GTP, Buick Park Avenue, and Oldsmobile LSS, they are apparently catching fire at a rate thirteen times greater than the naturally aspirated engine. Specifically, the agency has 180 complaints of "non-crash-related fires originating in the engine compartment while driving or after the vehicle is parked and the ignition switched off." An engineering analysis isn't a recall, it is a possible precursor to a recall. If you have that particular engine in your ride, you can find out more about the NHTSA's investigation here.

[Source: Inside Line]

With the recent highly-anticipated announcement of the DVD release for "Grand Prix", fans have had reason to rejoice. After a petition-signing campaign, Warner Home Video made the right call and decided to release this classic movie on the old digital video disc format. A two-disc, 40th anniversary special edition of John Frankenheimer's Academy Award-winning movie is now scheduled for a U.S. release on July 11.

Dolby Digital 5.1 sound, 16x9 widescreen format, and several special feature documentaries will allow viewers to experience this great movie like never before. But if you just can't wait another month, we have a new treat for you, via YouTube. A partial behind-the-scenes look at the making of the Monaco portion of the film is available after the jump. The description says it all: "This is Monaco in the mid 60s. The Making of the John Frankenheimer film 'Grand Prix' on Monaco. Sweet glamour of an era that will never be the same." Click through to see the whole 12-minute clip. Keep an eye out for the GT40 camera car!

[Source: YouTube]

Dubbed "the world's fastest Formula 1 magazine" by its publisher, auto racing's newest publication, Grand Prix +, aims to combine the visual sophistication of a print magazine with the speed of an online news source, with an issue delivered to your email in-box by 9 a.m. (UK time) the day after each Grand Prix.

The new venture by Morienval Press, a sister company of GrandPrix.com, Grand Prix + combines the in-depth race reporting of grandprix.com with feature articles and news about the sport, as well as the stunning photography of Paul-Henri Cahier. The Spanish Grand Prix issue is available for free download here.

A quick review of the Barcelona edition suggests that the Grand Prix + team still has a few bugs to work out, and the design and typography are a bit uneven, but Cahier's photography from the Barcelona race weekend more than makes up for the shortcomings. Another free issue is promised after the Monaco GP, before the e-zine shifts into profit making mode, with an annual subscription of £19.99 or a per-issue price of £1.99.

[Source: GrandPrix.com]

If you're a Formula 1 fan and you're ever in the vicinity of the British Midlands, it's definitely worth making a trip to the Donington Park race track. Doninigton hosted the European Grand Prix a couple of times in the mid-90s and has a great car museum on-site. The Donington Grand Prix Collection has the world's largest collection of Grand Prix cars including classic BRMs, Coopers, Maseratis, Ferraris, McLarens and of course Lotuses.

From May 18-20 over 200 Grand Prix cars including many of the examples in the collection will be brought out to the track with some of them actually venturing out for driving demonstrations. The weekend's festivities will also include two rounds of the FIA Historic Formula One World Championship. Former F1 champions Jody Sheckter and Mario Andrettti will also be on hand for the GPLive weekend with the cars in which they got their first victories. A Lotus 98T formerly driven by the late Ayrton Senna, the final Lotus to be clad in the black and gold John Player Special color scheme, will also be out running with it's 1000hp 1.5L turbo V-6.

[Source: GPLive via CarScoop]

The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) in Arlington, Va. has just concluded testing on some 75 vehicles' head restraint systems and after performing a simulated rear-end impact of 20 MPH, only 22 of the systems received the top score of "good."

At the head of the class was Audi's A4, S4 and A6, along with the Chevy Cobalt, Ford Five Hundred (Taurus, whatever) and its Mercury counterpart, Honda's Civic, Hyundai Sonata, Jag S-Type, Kia Optima, Merc E-class, Nissan Sentra and its lesser sibling the Versa, Subaru's Impreza, Legacy and Outback, as well as Volvo's S40, S60 and S80 (no surprise).

The flunkees included the Acura TSX, BMW 5-series, Buick LaCrosse and Lucerne, Caddy CTS, DTS and STS, Chevy's Aveo, the Honda Fit and Accord, Infiniti's M35, the Jaguar X-Type, Kia Rio, Mitsubishi Galant, Pontiac's Grand Prix, plus the Toyota Avalon and Corrolla.

Considering that the IIHS estimates that the injuries sustained to the back and neck in these types of collisions costs insurance companies around $8 mbillion dollars per year, their interest in the matter is obvious. Whether or not consumers will include this in their purchasing criteria is another matter however.

[Source: IIHS]