News

2011 Mercedes SLS AMG GT3

While the wait for the Mercedes SLS AMG roadster version continues on, Mercedes is making the wait a little more bearable by surprising us with another SLS AMG: the GT3 version. The sports car will compete in the 2011 racing season.

The SLS AMG GT3 features a new new front apron with a splitter, the bonnet with central cooling air vent, wider front and rear wings, sideskirts with cooling ducts for the rear brakes, a rear diffuser and the adjustable rear aerofoil.

Yamaha unveils Rossi’s 2008 YZR-M1 MotoGP machine

Yamaha unveiled its 2008 YZR-M1 MotoGP machine this week in a large event held in conjunction with sponsors Fiat in Turin, Italy.

Last year the M1 was one of the slowest machines on the grid and played a major role in Valentino Rossi’s worst season for a decade, prompting Rossi to roundly criticise the machine publicly and Yamaha to test a V4 configuration and pneumatic valves in the hope of closing the horsepower gap to Ducati’s desmodromic valve system.

Kawasaki Versys 2010

Kawasaki doesn’t feel the Versys was as successful as it should have been. If that's so then the 2010 version deserves to make amends.

At the presentation of the updated 2010 model I was told the original claim that this was a bike for every rider wasn’t strictly accurate, it wouldn’t really do the job for superbike riders, and as a result sales haven't been as good as they might.

Hirvonen beats Loeb in WRC opener

Before the World Rally Championship got underway in Sweden, Mikko Hirvonen vowed to be braver than ever to stop Sebastien Loeb from claiming a seventh straight drivers' title.

He kept that promise by beating Loeb on the snow-coated Swedish stages for his 12th WRC win and his first on the Karlstad-based event.

Porsche 911 GT3 R Hybrid race car revealed

Porsche will bring its latest hybrid know-how to the racetrack in the form of the new 911 GT3 R Hybrid, revealed here for the first time prior to a planned public premiere at the Geneva auto show in early March.

Developed by a team of engineers at Porsche's Weissach R&D center, Porsche plans for the stripped-out race car to act as a rolling laboratory. The German carmaker wants to explore the potential of hybrid drivetrains in a racing environment before an expected announcement that it will return to the 24 Hours of Le Mans in a factory capacity, perhaps in 2012, with a race car boasting technology based on that used in the 911 GT3 R Hybrid.