Peeking inside an F1 champ’s toybox ...
EVER wondered what a Formula One world champion uses as his daily ride? In the case of reigning champ Lewis Hamilton it’s a fleet of exotic supercars including among others a Pagani Zonda 760 LH, a McLaren P1, a Ford Mustang Shelby GT500, a Mercedes SLS, and a LaFerrari. The 30-year old triple champion, who drives for Mercedes, seems to have a soft spot for the Ferrari despite his rivalry with the red team on the track. He was recently spotted driving the R24-million LaFerrari around the streets of Hollywood with his mate, singer Justin Bieber, in the passenger seat.
The multi-million buck ride passed without incident, unlike in November when Lewis crashed and slightly damaged his Zonda while cruising around Monaco.
AFTER being in business less than six years, Uber has surpassed the valuation of car giants Ford and General Motors.
The global ride-sharing company is seeking another $2.1 billion in a funding round that could increase the firm’s valuation to $62.5 billion, which is more than iconic carmakers Ford (valued at $60-billion) and General Motors ($56.2-billion)
The Uber mobile app allows consumers with smartphones to submit a trip request which is then routed to Uber drivers who use their own cars. The American company’s meteoric rise has seen it expand to 67 countries and over 300 cities worldwide, though its success has drawn protests from traditional taxi operators who fear their livelihood’s being threatened.
ONGOING rumours that Apple is working on an electric car to rival Tesla gained momentum after the giant tech firm recently registered domain names including apple.car, apple.cars and apple.auto.
Although the company has no previous automotive experience, anything with an ‘i’ prefix is sure to be a hit with Apple acolytes and could make an iCar another moneyspinner for a firm that brought us the iPod, iPad and iPhone.
While Apple has never officially confirmed it’s planning to build a car, numerous reports in recent months have suggested the firm is secretly developing an electric car under the project name ‘Titan’. The domain name registration suggests it could be about to go public with its plans.
It’s also rumoured that Apple’s iCar could be self-driving and thus compete with the autonomous car being developed (much more publicly) by its great rival Google.
DRIVING a Subaru BRZ, stunt driver Alastair Moffat set a new world record for the tightest 360-degree spin last weekend during the annual Autosport Show in Birmingham.
The parameters were set by parking two rows of cars just 6.49 metres apart. Given that the BRZ is 4.24 metres from bumper to bumper, this allowed a clearance of only 2.25 metres (the previous record was set in 2014 with a clearance of 2.5 metres). Moffat disabled the car’s ABS and turned off the traction control to make it more tail-happy. Then he pitched the Scooby into the gap at about 50km/h, hit the handbrake and there wasn’t a scratch on any of the cars afterwards - proof positive of a new world record.
Check out the youtube video on http://goo.gl/lsC2Mp