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F1

FORMULA One will make it mandatory for all personnel working in its paddock to be vaccinated against Covid-19, starting this season, a spokesperson for the sport’s commercial arm said this week. This will apply to anyone entering the paddock – an exclusive area in which teams and drivers set up shop for a race weekend.

“F1 will require all travelling personnel to be fully vaxxed and will not request exemptions,” the spokesperson said. This will include competitors, hospitality staff, the media, the governing FIA, commercial rights holders FOM and celebrity guests.

| Reuters

Top seller

TOYOTA retained its crown as the world’s top-selling car company in 2021, having overcome a chip shortage and supply chain woes to beat Volkswagen for a second straight year. The Japanese auto giant said it sold nearly 10.5 million vehicles in 2021, a jump of about 10% from 2020, including units made by its Daihatsu and Hino subsidiaries.

German rival Volkswagen, which Toyota overtook last year to reclaim top spot for global sales, said this month that it had shifted 8.9 million vehicles in 2021, down 4.5% year-on-year as the chip shortage squeezed sales. It was a similar scenario in South Africa.

| IOL & AFP

Partners

VOLKSWAGEN and parts supplier Bosch have embarked on an “extensive partnership” to bring automated driving to the mass market by next year, the German companies announced this week. Bosch and VW software subsidiary Cariad are aiming to “make functions available that will allow drivers to temporarily take their hands off the steering wheel” in vehicles sold under the Volkswagen Group brand.

These will range from so-called “hands-free” systems for urban and motorway driving to a system that takes over all driving functions on the motorway, the companies said. | AFP

Safety

SOME vehicles equipped with automated assistance technology aimed at keeping drivers alert and watching the road fail at that job, an American Automobile Association study found on Tuesday.

The AAA study said monitoring systems that rely only on how drivers handle the steering wheel were not successful. Those that use cameras to monitor drivers’ eye and head position were far more effective at keeping drivers focused while vehicle software is engaged. Those direct monitoring systems issued an alert to the driver 50 seconds sooner than those relying on indirect steering wheel input. | Reuters

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