fia

Formula E electric-car race adds Los Angeles venue

Los Angeles, once known for its smog, has signed on with the all-new Formula E racing organization to host one of the worldwide series of 10 electric-car races, kicking off next year.

Los Angeles joins Miami; London; Rome; Beijing; Rio de Janeiro; Putrajaya, Malaysia; and Buenos Aires, Argentina, in hosting races in the series. Two more cities in the series have yet to be announced.

The Formula E organization demonstrated one of its electric race cars in Los Angeles on Monday.

Although Formula E intends the series to be open to competitive build teams, the organization has contracted Spark Racing … Read more

Toyota returns to 2012 Le Mans 24 Hours with LMP1 hybrid race car

Toyota announced Friday that it will compete in the 2012 Le Mans 24 Hours with a new race car powered by a petrol hybrid powertrain.

According to the automaker, the LMP1 will be a collaborative effort: Toyota Motorsport in Germany will design the chassis, and the car will be equipped with a hybrid gas powertrain engineered by Toyota in Japan.

A new race team will be organized out of Toyota Motorsport's Cologne headquarters, the company said in a press release. And in addition to competing in the 80th running of the Le Mans 24 Hours (June 16 and 17, … Read more

Mini Motorsport WRC shares team launch event on Facebook and YouTube

Huge drifts and squealing tires (in the video below) marked the launch of the new Mini WRC Team at the Mini Plant in Oxford, England. Mini shared that launch on the Mini motorsport Web site, Facebook and YouTube.

Monday's event marked the official launch of the team that will compete in six rounds of the FIA World Rally Championship (WRC) with the Mini John Cooper Works WRC. Based on the Mini Countryman production model, the car is powered by the same 1.6-liter turbo engine used in Mini production vehicles.

The team's first chance at competition, with drivers … Read more

Dispatch from the desert: Speed Scotland hopes to break land speed record

TOOELE COUNTY, UTAH--The Speed Scotland team this week will try to beat the 12-year record of 313 mph in the Salt Flats of Utah at the 62nd annual running of Bonneville Speed Week.

The team completed a "rookie run" on Saturday, reaching a top speed of 170 mph at the second mile marker of a five-mile run. Cars are clocked three times on the track. Each entry receives an average mph between the second and third mile, the third and fourth mile and the fourth and fifth mile. The team did not complete runs on Sunday or Monday.… Read more

SingTel Singapore Grand Prix: A Preview in Pictures

In 2008, FIA Formula One World Championship reintroduced the Singapore Grand Prix to its legions of fans after years of inactivity. Despite this fact, the race that takes place at the scenic Marina Bay in Singapore has a history that dates back to the mid 1960s. In fact, a lot of the appeal of this particular F1 event is its course that runs around the picturesque Marina Bay area vicinity, and also because of its night race that takes place amid the bay's incredible visuals. And with that said, this is the very reason I have selected this particular … Read more

Felipe Massa's Career-Threatening crash at Hungarian Grand Prix

Jimmie Johnson's victory at the Autism Speaks 400 wasn't the only big news coming from the racing world two weekends ago. The FIA Formula One World Championship held its annual Hungarian Grand Prix that same weekend, and while Lewis Hamilton picked up his first win of the 2009 season at this race, perhaps the biggest news concerned the horrific accident that befell Brazilian F1 driver Felipe Massa on July 25 while attempting to qualify for this championship race.

I was only able to locate one web video of the accident, and while it isn't of the highest … Read more

This Week: World Rally Championship Racing

My blog theme last week dealt with videos featuring redneck cars and racing. This week my blog goes transcontinental by taking a look at World Rally Championship (WRC) and their many exciting races.

First, a little background info: WRC is organized by the FiA (The F?d?ration Internationale de l'Automobile), which is regarded as the official governing body for many racing events (especially in Europe). The FiA established World Rally Championship in 1973, and the series consists of 12 different three-day events at locations throughout Europe focusing on closed roads featuring varying types of road conditions and driving … Read more

Toyota simulation tries to keep you in one piece

Having made a fool of ourselves last Friday crashing at every turn in the SingTel F1 simulator race, we were relieved to see somebody else being a klutz behind the wheel.

Toyota has developed a computer simulation dubbed Total Human Model Safety (THUMS), which re-creates high-speed accidents to examine the impact it has on human physiology, according to Fareastgizmos. The system is part of a new study conducted jointly with the FIA Institute that is designed specifically to examine high-speed rear-impact collisions at the FIA Formula One World Championship and Indy Racing League.

Driving an F1 car, as you might … Read more