Possible Volkswagen-Red Bull F1 Engine Deal 'Up In Smoke'

Red Bull’s F1 team is the latest victim of Volkswagen’s emissions scandal, as a possible deal between the team and the automaker has gone “up in smoke.”

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Boycotting Every Race On the 2015 Formula One Calendar

Disclosure: I love Formula One. At least a dozen times every year, I inadvertently wake up my wife and dog at 4:30 in the morning (Pacific time) as I yelp wildly in the living room and watch the live race feed.

As a left-of-center F1 fan, three issues gnaw at me. One, the sport is perceived as elitist. One Percenters(tm) own the teams, pack the hospitality suites at races, and park their mega-yachts next to race tracks. Two, a lot of fuel is used to fly the cars, the equipment, and crews all over the world, from Singapore to Austin.

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Mental's At The Money Circus: Day One

It would seem that I’m not the only one excited for the Abu Dhabi F1 Race this weekend. Check out Susie Wolff’s Instagram (but NOT AT WORK!!!!!) for a stopover in Dubai… With the big guys at TTAC unable to attend the F1 festivities, it fell onto my weak and thin shoulders to share my experiences at the Abu Dhabi F1 race with you, the B&B.

Here goes.

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Push To Pass Out – Nigel Mansell's 1984 Lotus 95T Comes Up For Auction

One of my favorite Formula One memories is from the inaugural (and only) Dallas Grand Prix, in 1984, involving my favorite team, the Colin Chapman era Lotus (though by 1984 Chapman had already died) and one of my favorite drivers, Nigel Mansell, forever shattering a stereotype of F1 drivers as prima donnas. Now you can own the Lotus 95T that he drove that day. Today’s F1 cars have a Drag Reduction System, DRS, as well as being able to use energy recovered with regenerative braking by the Kinetic Energy Recovery System, KERS. Both allow the driver to push a button and go faster, not entirely unlike IndyCar’s “push to pass” system that momentarily increases engine power. Twenty-nine years ago this week, Mansell had no such technical aids. Instead of push to pass, he pushed, literally, until he passed out.

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McLaren, Powered By Honda

Thursday-afternoon press conferences at Mitsubishi and Nissan remained mostly deserted as the Fourth Estate congregated at Honda to hear the not so secret news that Honda will return to F1. I didn’t go because I thought we don’t cover F1. When I remembered that we now do, it was too late. Did I mention that running around Tokyo covering the auto beat is a world of tough decisions?

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F1 Report: Hamilton Can't Drive Any Slower, Alonso Can't Go Any Faster.

Some of TTAC’s readers have made it absolutely clear that they cannot abide it when I pick on Red Bull’s Mark Webber. So let’s say something nice about the man: he made up for his usual an unexpectedly poor start to finish in fifth place, just behind his teammate, Sebastian Vettel. If you’re a Mark Webber fan, now would be a good time to feel good about the whole thing and look forward to the next race.

Everybody else should click the jump.

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If You Waste Your Time Watching Just One Video Today, Let It Be This One

This has been done before — most notably by Top Gear in the Stewart-Ford days — but this time it’s live, and real, and fantastic.

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The Start

There is a majesty in Formula One that is rarely found elsewhere. This six-minute film documents that majesty in completely convincing, and satisfying, fashion.

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"Greener" Formula One Made To Measure For Toyota

Toyota dropped out of Formula One in 2009, and said it won’t come back , claiming that the sports is “too elistist” and out of touch with Toyota’s customers. Now, the company is dropping hints that the door is not closed forever. Asked by The Nikkei [sub] whether Toyota might come back to the sport, Toyota Managing Officer Kiyotaka Ise was much less dismissive than in the past:

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Adrian Sutil Is No Sergei Rachmaninoff… Music and Driving

After this week’s article on Sergei Rachmaninoff and his connection to the world of automobiles, I thought it might make sense to look around to find other interesting music/auto combos. I ended up constructing a mental two-axis graph in my head, where X was musical ability and Y is driving talent. Some people, like Damon Hill, are close to the left side of X and pretty far up on Y; others, like noted collector and Pink Floyd drummer Nick Mason, are the reverse. I think of myself as being more than halfway up Y but less than halfway along X; you can decide for yourself where the autojourno group would place.

Since this is a car blog and not MOJO magazine, however, we’ll focus on the best driver we can find with musical cred, and that is… Force India stalwart Adrian Sutil.

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NASCAR Tech: It's A Lot More Than You Think

I’ve heard a lot of derisive comments about NASCAR lately on this site, many of them from people — my fellow racers and fast-road drivers — who should know better. While it’s true that the common template is a disgrace, the idea that NASCAR is a low-tech ghetto compared to the oh-so-modern sports-car series like the ALMS is, to put it mildly, false. There’s a reason that the abortive USF1 team wanted to locate near the NASCAR guys. It’s where the tech is. Click the jump to find out why racing NASCAR takes more brainpower than any Touring Car or prototype series out there…

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  • Carson D At 1:24 AM, the voyage data recorder (VDR) stopped recording the vessel’s system data, but it was able to continue taping audio. At 1:26 AM, the VDR resumed recording vessel system data. Three minutes later, the Dali collided with the bridge. Nothing suspicious at all. Let's go get some booster shots!
  • Darren Mertz Where's the heater control? Where's the Radio control? Where the bloody speedometer?? In a menu I suppose. How safe is that??? Volvo....
  • Lorenzo Are they calling it a K4? That's a mountain in the Himalayas! Stick with names!
  • MaintenanceCosts It's going to have to go downmarket a bit not to step on the Land Cruiser's toes.
  • Lorenzo Since EVs don't come in for oil changes, their owners don't have their tires rotated regularly, something the dealers would have done. That's the biggest reason they need to buy a new set of tires sooner, not that EVs wear out tires appreciably faster.