Ferrari Gives Up on 2011 Championship to Prepare Next Year’s Car

Truth to be said, Scuderia Ferrari had a bad start in the F1 season this year. Nevertheless, changes to the personnel and, more importantly, to the Ferrari F1 car's aerodynamic package gradually improved its pace considerably, yielding a win in Great Britain and four podium finishes for Fernando Alonso.
But even with Felippe Massa saying that nothing's over and Luca di Montezemolo claiming that he expects more wins in 2011, team principal Stefano Domenicali revealed to the Telegraph that the Scuderia will stop developing this year’s car in September.
From this point on, Ferrari will concentrate all of its resources on next year’s car. And, given Red Bull’s huge points advantage, no one can really blame them.
“OK, if you have to do some fine tuning you can do it. But otherwise you will lose a lot of time on development of the new car. The more time we can spend on the wind tunnel the better” said Domenicali. “What I really want to avoid is another difficult winter like the last two years," he added.

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Van Bumps Ferrari 360 Modena Spider into the Sea after Brake Failure

When it comes to exotic sports cars like the Ferrari 360 Modena Spider and accidents, more often than not, mishaps are the result of speeding or bad road conditions, sometimes even both.
But that's not the case here as the Ferrari Modena Spider pictured half dipped into the sea was actually parked on the road when this accident occurred.
The incident took place at the Croatian island of Pag located in the northern Adriatic Sea on Monday morning when the driver of a van bumped into the Ferrari pushing the drop-top model into the sea.
According to the local media, the driver of the van said that his brakes didn't work.
For more pictures of the incident, check out the links below.

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Ferrari to Drop the Top on New 458 Italia Spider

Emerging from the rumormill are talks about Ferrari getting ready to reveal a convertible version of its new 458 Italia supercar at next month's 2011 Frankfurt auto show.
According to the report from Germany's Auto Motor und Sport magazine, like its predecessor, the 458 Italia Spider will be offered with an electrically operated cloth convertible top that disappears behind the front seats.
Under the hood, the 458 Italia Spider will sport the same 4.5-liter V8 engine with direct injection technology found in the coupe model.
The V8 delivers 570 horsepower at 9,000 rpm and a peak torque of 540Nm or 398.2 lb-ft at 6,000 rpm. All that grunt will be sent to the rear wheels through Ferrari's highly-acclaimed 7-speed F1 dual-clutch gearbox.
Expect to see the Spider version in showrooms in 2012. 
 

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Ferrari's Montezemolo Expects More Wins this Season

Ferrari president, Luca di Montezemolo, has stated that he expects the Scuderia to win more races this season. And this despite the fact that in the 11 first races of the year they have won only once, with Fernando Alonso in the British Grand Prix at Silverstone.

Alonso lies fourth at the Drivers’ championship and his teammate Fernando Massa sixth, trailing championship leader Sebastian Vettel by 89 and 164 points respectively with just eight races remaining. In the Constructors’ championship, Ferrari is in third position, with 215 points, trailing Red Bull (383) and McLaren (280).
Still, di Montezemolo came out with a positive mood after a meeting with team principal Stefano Domenicali, technical director Pat Fry and engine boss Luca Marmorini:
“I can see the right spirit in the team after a very difficult start to the season. Domenicali and his crew seem very determined, concentrating on their tasks for the second part of the year which I am sure will feature Ferrari in the role of a key player. I expect we will pick up wins to add to the historically very significant victory achieved at Silverstone”.
Ferrari’s boss does have a point since the 150 Italia seems to be much more competitive after recent aerodynamic changes, with Alonso being on the podium in the five of the last six races.
No one mentioned the championship, though. This, despite the fact that everything is still possible, seems to be going the way of Red Bull –unless McLaren and Lewis Hamilton can prove them wrong. But the Scuderia is satisfied with the progress after its worst start of the year in many seasons –and can surely play a big role in deciding the championships.

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Video: Two Girls, a Red Ferrari F430, a Parking Job

It's become something of spectator sport over in Europe and chiefly in London: people equipped with a handy cam waiting for a hot car to pass by to record it and upload the video on Youtube.

As with anything else in life, sometimes it pays off, sometimes it does not and our amateur producers are left with a bitter taste in the mouth.
This particular video sent in by one of our readers caught our attention mainly due to the fact that there were two young females in the red Ferrari F430 and to a lesser extent, the rather mediocre parking job. If you have a few minutes to spare, watch it after the jump.

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Ferrari 458 Italia Grand Am

Italian sports carmaker Ferrari has set its eyes on the North American Grand Am series, which it plans to compete in with the new 458 Italia Grand Am that was given its track baptism today at the Fiorano circuit completing several laps in the hands of Maurizio Mediani and Jaime Melo.

Developed in cooperation with Michelotto Automobili, the racing model is based on the European GT3 version of the 458 Italia but features less efficient aerodynamics as well as a detuned V8 delivering 500-horses due to the different regulations in the American series.
In addition, the Grand Am sports a modified braking system, as the car has neither ABS nor traction control.
Other differences compared to the GT3 include the strengthened roll-over bar to deal with the more frequent collisions in the American series, while the car is also fitted with Continental tires, the sole supplier to the series.

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Ferrari World Design Contest

For the past few months, design students from 50 universities across the globe took up Ferrari’s challenge of designing a future supercar for the famous Italian brand. Now, following the completion of the second phase in which seven schools were chosen to move to the final round, we have a winner.
Drum-roll please…and the winners of the Ferrari World Design Contest are…the students from Seoul’s Hongik University. The South Korean school finished first ahead of the second-placed IED of Turin in Italy and London’s Royal College of Arts.
The first three winning models are:

1) Eternità– Kim Cheong Ju (Rep. of Korea), Ahn Dre (Rep. of Korea), Lee Sahngseok (Rep. of Korea) – Hongik University (Seoul)
2) Xezri– Samir Sadikhov (Azerbaijan ) – IED (Turin)
3) Cavallo Bianco – Henry Cloke (UK), Qi Haitao (China) – RCA (London)

Following the announcement of the winners, Ferrari chairman Luca di Montezemolo commented:
“Ferrari World Design Contest represents a window that we want to keep open on the world and the creative energy of the next generation. I saw at first hand the many genuinely innovative ideas that these talented youngsters sent us and could feel the enormous passion and commitment that had gone into them. I am certain that some of these suggestions will come to light in the Ferraris of the future.”
The Italian company said that the all of the design concepts focused on reducing weight and fuel consumption, the latter through alternative propulsion systems, and in particularly hybrid engines.
Commenting on the winning design from Korea, the Eternità (pictured in the opening photo), Ferrari stated: “The Seoul students provided the finest interpretation of Ferrari’s design brief for a thoroughbred hypercar brimming with new generation technologies and materials, an extreme (“hyper”) car not only in its architecture but also in every other aspect.”

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Ferrari 458 Starts Drag Race In REVERSE!!

Before you watch the following video, take a minute to ponder this: You are sitting behind the steering wheel of an exotic, brand new Italian supercar, getting ready to drag race a V10-powered Dodge Viper on the quarter mile strip in front of a crowd of 100, or perhaps even more people. But when the race begins you start rolling backwards…

Oh yes, that’s right; the owner of the Ferrari 458 Italia that you’re about to see in the clip and who was pitted against a Dodge Viper at the ICAR motorsports complex situated just outside of Montreal in Canada, paddle shifted his car’s dual clutch auto transmission into reverse!

True, anyone can make a mistake, but can you really think of a more embarrassing moment on the track?

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Ferrari Says: No to Plans for New Stratos

“Despite Ferrari president Luca di Montezemolo’s excellent assessment of the New Stratos after his test drive at Fiorano, Ferrari does not consent to construction of the planned limited run by either Pininfarina or any other Ferrari-dependent suppliers.”

And with the above short statement, Ferrari announced to Michael Stoschek, the man behind the 21st century interpretation of the famous Lancia Stratos of the ‘70s, that it won’t let him use its chassis, engines nor allow any of its suppliers to participate in the build.

Therefore, if the company wants to build a limited run of the New Stratos, they won’t be able to use the 360 Modena, F430 or 458 Italia as donors, nor rely on Pininfarina to build the carbon fiber bodywork, as originally planned. As Stoschek himself put it, they’ll have to do so “only via companies that are not dependent on Ferrari”. Currently the only car in existence is based on a Ferrari F430 Scuderia.

Come on, Ferrari, your boss said he was so impressed and now you get cold feet? What are you afraid of? Surely, your long waiting lists won’t be hurt by a limited run of 40 or perhaps even less examples of the New Stratos.

We hope some other company, preferably Italian in order to keep the character, will step in and help the New Stratos be built.

What do you say, Lamborghini; are you interested? You already have the hardware – the Gallardo and its V10 would make an excellent donor car. Wouldn’t you like to go against your arch-rival and earn the respect of car enthusiasts all over the world?

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Red Bull Takes the Front Row in Qualifying with Webber in Pole Position

The unpredictable weather conditions made the qualifying of the British Grand Prix something of a gamble, and the teams weather forecasts were expecting rain during the final session. So everyone made sure that they got out quickly in order to set a fast time before it started to rain again.

Once again Sebastian Vettel was the man to beat, setting a provisional pole. But this was not to last as his team mate, Mark Webber, recorded a fastest lap just seconds later beating Vettel by just 0.032 seconds.

Behind the Red Bull-occupied front row were the two Ferraris. Third place went to Fernando Alonso, who was just 0.1 seconds slower than Vettel and fourth to Felipe Massa, with the Scuderia obviously very happy with the progress they have made.

Jenson Button’s McLaren was fifth, but his team mate Lewis Hamilton couldn’t manage anything better than 10th place in his home Grand Prix. The surprise of the day was the performance of Paul di Resta, who in his rookie period brought his Force India to the sixth place of the grid.

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Massa Shines in the Rain

Ferrari’s Felipe Massa set the quickest time in Friday’s afternoon practice session of the Formula 1 British Grand Prix, which takes place this weekend at Silverstone. Just minutes before the beginning of the session, heavy rain started to fall, with all cars staying in the pits for half an hour because of the condition of the track.

However, in the last 20 minutes conditions improved slightly and the teams decided to send their cars out of the pit lane. At first Michael Schumacher, on wet tires, set the fastest time until one minute before the end of the session.

But with the track drying up the rest were able to use intermediate tires and Massa, with 1:49.967, 0.777 seconds ahead of Nico Rosberg’s Mercedes and Kamui Kobayashi’s Sauber.

2011 champion and current points leader Sebastian Vettel was 18th, one spot behind the second Ferrari of Fernando Alonso.

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Ferrari North Europe Brightens the Lives of 50 Children

On Tuesday, July 26, 50 special children will enjoy being driven around the Silverstone circuit in a Ferrari California by professional racing drivers from the British Racing Driver’s Club along with “BRDC SuperStars”, young drivers learning to be the professionals of tomorrow.

Ferrari North Europe organizes the event for the second time in collaboration with the BRDC and two charities, The Variety Club and BEN, to brighten the lives of some disabled, disadvantaged and seriously ill children. During the children’s 15-minute ride in the passenger seat of the California, their families will have access to the BRDC Clubhouse.

Matteo Torre, Ferrari North Europe’s Regional Manager, commented: “It is our honour and privilege to be able to share the excitement of riding in a Ferrari with another group of truly deserving children. Last year’s event was unforgettable, not only for the children but for all those who donated their time and energy. We look forward to create another memorable day”.

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1:24 Scale Supercar Exotics Encased In Resin

Here’s something you don’t see every day: a 1970's style resin “sculpture” made by an unknown French artist and featuring various 1:24 scale Ferraris.
There’s also a Lamborghini Diablo, Jaguar XJ220 and Bugatti EB110 in there among others. Props to anyone who can help us identify the rest. The unusual item is being sold by Mantiques Modern [sic] of New York.
For details on price, you’ll have to contact the dealer, but something tells us it won’t be cheap… More photos of the artsy piece in the gallery 

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