Autoblog

Ferrari F2007

After 60 years, Scuderia Ferrari still hasn't gotten tired of getting a head start over its rivals. This time, the team has confirmed that the car it will be campaigning next season will be unveiled within a couple weeks' time on January 6.

The early launch date, which was leaked first by Kimi Raikkonen and then confirmed by president Luca di Montezemolo and CEO Jean Todt, places Ferrari as the first F1 team to unveil its car in the new year. Toyota will be unveiling its car on January 10, BMW Sauber on January 14, Honda on January 29 and Renault on January 31. The remaining teams, including Williams, Red Bull, Scuderia Toro Rosso, Force India and Super Aguri, are expected to show their cars later on. Following the much hyped spy scandal, McLaren is opting to forego the festivities of a glitzy unveiling for its 2008 car.

With the F2008, Ferrari is hoping to repeat this past year's performance by reclaiming the driver's and constructor's titles. The car is expected to be an evolution of the F2007 (pictured above), which was hailed as a revolutionary design.

[Source: Inside Line]

It's been almost four years since the Champ Car series has raced in Europe, but organizers are planning on bringing it back. 2003 was the last season the declining American open-wheel series raced in Europe, when French ace Sebastien Bourdais – now three-time Champ champ – won both the races at Brands Hatch in England and the Lausitzring EuroSpeedway in Germany.

The latest reports suggest that the 2007 season will include two new races in Europe, though not at the same venues as previous seasons. On September 2, Champ Cars will be racing around Holland's Assen circuit, a former road track that has since been developed into a full facility. A week later, the second European race will be competing with the Italian Grand Prix at Monza when Champ Cars race at Zolder, once the site of the Belgian Grand Prix.

The two new European venues bring the Champ Car calendar up to a very full 17 races around the world, joined by events in the United States, Canada, Mexico, Australia and China. By comparison, the competing IndyCar series also has seventeen races scheduled for 2007, though the Motegi race in Japan stands alone as the IRL's only race abroad. If you were a driver aiming to climb up the ladder to Formula One, which would you choose?

[Source: GrandPrix.com]

Someone's bound to get in trouble for this, 'cause this is not a document that should have hit the internet. But since it has, we're glad to bring it to you. It was apparently prepared for a conference of Fiat Group investors held over the last couple of days.

A few weeks ago, we brought you the anticipated release dates through 2008 for Fiat, Lancia and Alfa Romeo. This leaked document, however, gives us the release dates for Fiat, Lancia, Alfa Romeo and Fiat commercial vehicles straight through 2010. The chart shows the dates for a total of 23 new models plus another 23 facelifts.

2009 will be a really big year for Alfa Romeo, with facelifted versions of the gorgeous Brera/Spider/159 line-up (already arguably the best-looking cars money can buy) hitting the market the same year as the new 169 and 149 (labeled "future c-segment"). Sadly, though the Maserati logo features on the top-right corner of the page, that division's production schedule is not included, nor is Ferrari's for that matter.

Click on the the chart above for all the juicy Italian details.

[Source: Carscoop]

Typically we get production announcements from manufacturers one model at a time, if not one brand at a time, but the Fiat Group has released their full production schedule for the Lancia, Alfa Romeo and Fiat brands for the next few years.

We'll get right into the good stuff with the most exciting of the three (and the only one destined for a re-emergence in the North American market): Alfa Romeo. The long awaited 149 has been pushed back again to mid-2009, before which the 147 it replaces will get the Fiat Group's new 1.4-liter turbo next summer. While waiting for the 149, the Alfa Junior, a sports hatch slotting below it, will hit the roads in mid-2008. A special version of the Alfa Romeo GT called the "Veloce" will arrive next January, and a sportier Ti version of the gorgeous 159 will hit showrooms next February/March.

The Fiat Bravo, shots of which have been floating around the net, will arrive long before the Alfa 149 with which it shares its platform, arriving late next summer. Fiat's revival of the 500 is due for January '08. A new model called the Linea is due next fall, and the Grande Punto will get the 1.4-liter turbo early next summer.

Lastly, Lancia's new Delta, previewed by the HPE concept in Paris, is scheduled to hit the road early in 2008, a facelifted Musa in fall 2007, and a Sport version of the Ypsillon city-car next spring.

Unfortunately, Fiat didn't give us a production schedule for Ferrari and Maserati, so we'll have to wait for the news piece by piece.

[Source: Carscoop]

The American Le Mans Series has enjoyed unprecedented success this season thanks to the attention being paid to Audi and its dominant pair of diesel-powered R10 racers. In addition to the action in the top LMP1 class, however, the rest of the classes feature entertaining battles every race between the likes of Chevy and Aston Martin, Porsche and Ferrari and many other marques and independent teams.

The ALMS will be capitalizing on its success next season with a schedule that's grown by two races to 12 and features three new venues. The new races are the Honda Grand Prix of St. Petersburg on March 31st, the Long Beach Grand Prix on April 14th and the recently announced return to racing at Belle Isle organized by Roger Penske on September 1st. The Portland Grand Prix was the only race dropped from the 2007 season schedule, but the new races announced will place ALMS within some giant major metropolitan markets and more than make up for the loss of Portland's race.

All twelve races can also be caught on TV thanks to partnerships with SPEED, which will carry the three new races and the final four of the season, CBS and NBC. We've got one race left to go in the 2006 season, the Monterey Sports Car Championships at Mazda's Laguna Seca Raceway on October 21st, after which the ALMS is on hiatus until the third annual Sebring Winter Test from January 22-24th.

[Source: ALMS via Fourtitude]