The Zimride company is about to launch a smartphone app called Lyft, aimed at facilitating carpooling.
Only available at the moment upon invitation (and in the San Francisco area), Lyft enables people to find potential carpoolers, located in the same area and going in the same direction. Once the lift is "booked", the device allows the user to track his fellow traveller to know whether or not he's on his way.
Payment methods disregard cash. The system works instead on a donation arrangement, available with the app, that Zimride claims cost 30% less than a taxi. The only problem is people are, rightly so, not enthusiastic at the idea of embarking aboard an unknown car driven by a stranger.
To solve the problem, Zimride says it will perform thorough background checks on drivers upon their acceptance in the system.
The Lyft app only works on evenings so far, but a 24/7 solution is in the making.
The F1 car photographed amid the charred remains of Williams' burnt-out garage in Barcelona will be back in action this weekend at Monaco.
We reported last week that an initial inspection of Bruno Senna's Renault-powered FW34, which was sitting in the pits when the fire broke out during the team's celebrations for Pastor Maldonado's victory last Sunday, showed it had emerged with minimal damage.
A spokesman has now confirmed that Senna will race the very same chassis on the streets of Monaco this week.
Otherwise, the garage fire "somewhat hampered" Williams' preparations for the famous race in the Principality, chief engineer Mark Gillan admitted.
"But the impact has been mitigated by what can only be described as a herculean effort by the factory and our suppliers to restock both the damaged equipment and car parts," he said.
Photo: WRi2
Mark Gillan also said rival teams made "generous offers" of help.
Maldonado's chassis was safely in parc ferme at the time of the fire.
Recently, the Brazilian has been giving up his seat to the team's rising young reserve driver Valtteri Bottas on Friday mornings.
But Bruno Senna will be at the wheel of his Williams throughout the Monaco grand prix weekend.
The programme of the Finnish driver for 2012 involves practicing at every grand prix circuit "except for the street races".
Therefore, Valtteri Bottas is expected to also sit out Canada, Valencia and Singapore.
Even ahead of F1's Singapore floatation, the sport has some new owners.
Reuters, the specialist financial market news agency, said US-based asset managers Waddell and Reed, Blackrock and Norway's Norges Bank have bought a $1.6 billion stake from existing owners CVC.
The report cited a source "with direct knowledge of the matter". The companies did not immediately comment.
It drops CVC's stake from 63.4 per cent to about 40pc, the source said.
Other reports said pre-marketing for the listing, likely to go ahead at the end of June, will begin immediately.
"It is not our practice to publicly comment on our dealings with listing aspirants," said a Singapore bourse spokesman.
Some insiders have expressed concern.
"Look at the muted first-day response to Facebook's IPO," an unnamed banker told the Singapore broadsheet Straits Times. "The F1 listing is not nearly as attractive and long-awaited as that."
In an interview given to Autosprint, Pirelli's motorsport director Paul Hembery said that the company is ready to supply Q3-only tires, but adds that the teams are reluctant to change the format of the qualifying session.
The main concern about the current format is that the cars must be shod on the same tires they qualify on in the race, something that has lead to drivers sitting out Q3 in order to limit their running and save sets of tires for the Grand Prix.
In order to change this, Pirelli could supply additional tires for the qualifying effort only.
Photo: Pirelli
"We could do it immediately," Hembery told Autosprint. "We could come up with a specific compound, or maintain the current ones. But the teams say that the format is fine as is, that the public enjoys tire strategies”.
Paul Hembery added: “But if a fan on the grandstands doesn't see much running in Q3, then that fan casts the blame on Pirelli thinking that we don't want to spend any more money in order to supply more tires."
Pirelli has unveiled the P Zero slick compounds that will be used for the races after Monaco.
The forthcoming races, after Monaco, are the Canadian Grand Prix in Montreal, the European Grand Prix in Valencia, Spain and the British Grand Prix at Silverstone.
The same tires selected for Monaco this weekend will be used in Montreal, on the tight and twisty street circuit Gilles-Villeneuve, the P Zero Yellow soft and the P Zero Red supersofts tires.
Valencia is also a street circuit, but with higher temperature, and Pirelli will bring P Zero White medium and P Zero Yellow soft tires.
Silverstone is one of the quickest circuits of the year and the teams will be able to adopt different strategies with the P Zero Silver hard and P Zero Yellow soft tires.
As usual, each team receives six sets of there harder compound and five sets of the softer compound for the entire race weekend.
In 1985, Danny Sullivan, nicknamed “The Kentucky Kid” won the 500 Miles of Indianapolis with style, spinning his March at high speed and not hitting anything. Here's a video of his stunning spin!
Sullivan, who drove for the Benetton Tyrrell-Ford Formula 1 team in 1983 returned in North America afterwards to compete in the PPG Indycar series, driving for Roger Penske.
At Indy in 1985, he passed race leader Mario Andretti only to spin out of control. Sullivan did not hit the wall, pitted for a set of fresh tires and went on to win the race.
Sullivan made one of the most amazing saves in the history of the Indy 500.
The Japanese brand has revealed it sold as of April 30th, four million hybrid vehicles around the world - 423,000 in Europe and 94,000 in the United Kingdom.
Photo: Toyota
Toyota has become a leader in the hybrid technology industry. Its Prius was, after all, the first ever mass-produced hybrid vehicle - launched in December 1997. There was however another hybrid produced first, the Toyota Coaster hybrid EV, a bus which came out in July 1997.
But nevertheless, the Prius first went around in Europe, then ventured in North America and other markets with the new millennium. In 2003, a new generation was baptized and prompted engineers to use the technology elsewhere: minivans, SUV, sedans and family cars.
The third-generation Prius busted sell records.
In total, Toyota sold no fewer than 19 hybrid models in close to 80 countries, and estimates that this year's hybrid sales will represent 15% of the grand total. The aim now is to further develop the technology to enhance performance while reducing costs.
Thanks to the efforts of Don Panoz, both owner of the American Le Mans Series (ALMS) and a Garage 56 managing partner, the eco-friendly DeltaWing racer could have a go in the series next year.
D-Day is approaching, the DeltaWing has started testing in Europe ahead of the 24 Hours of Le Mans, and Panoz hinted the most famous endurance race in the world may very well not be the ultimate goal of the venture.
"The amount of effort that has gone into preparing the car for the 24 Hours of Le Mans has been truly remarkable and a real credit to everyone involved," Panoz said before going on about what is coming up after.
"We are currently in discussions with our partners regarding [our future] but the challenging scenario is the fact that the car doesn't conform to the current ACO rules[.]
"However, we'd also love to see the car compete in the American Le Mans Series presented by Tequila Patrón and we're working towards that goal."
And at this stage, racing in the ALMS is more than a vague dream.
"We have already had discussions with IMSA regarding a rules framework where the DeltaWing could run against either P1 or P2 cars in the ALMS. The secret will be to come up with a set of rules where the cars are competitive, without being overly dominant."
Adrian Newey, the technical director of the Red Bull racing Formula 1 team, will compete in the second round of the Lamborghini Blancpain Super Trofeo at his home track of Silverstone, June 2-3.
The 53-year-old Englishman will share the No. 1 Lamborghini Gallardo Super Trofeo 570-hp V10 race car with Alberto Sabbatini, Editor in Chief of Italian magazine Autosprint.
Newey is also an accomplished race car driver. He's competed in the Classic Le Mans race, as well as in other spec series plus taken the wheel of the Red Bull RB5 at Goodwood in 2010.
Photo: Blancpain
Swiss newcomer Stefano Comini dominated the opening round of the 2012 season in Monza on April 14-15 with victory in both races. He leads the drivers' points standings with 30 points.
The number of cars on the grid for Silverstone is likely to be 18 with a UK entry joining the fray.
Competition for the title is fierce with new teams entered from Italy, France, Germany, the Czech Republic and 13 new contenders from all over Europe.
Jacques Villeneuve, who won the Formula 1 drivers' championship in 1997, will return to NASCAR with Penske Racing for two races in 2012.
Shocked? Well, you should be.
Villeneuve wound up with the best time at the NAPA Auto Parts 200 in Montreal last summer after a solid performance during the qualifying session. He got off to a good start and stayed in first place for a while, but when the race was interrupted, he reacted too late to the green flag and got schooled like a rookie.
Moments later, Villeneuve didn't slow down enough to complete the first turn and went off the track. And instead of safely heading straight, he abruptly steered left and slammed into Marcos Ambrose. Day over.
''I hit the snooze,'' he confessed.
Photo: Sébastien D'Amour
How could he be so distracted behind the wheel of the best car from the best team? What exactly was going through his mind? That was inexcusable.
Naturally, I assumed that Villeneuve had burned his bridges with Penske. Yet here he is again. But why?
It looks like Penske has forgotten all about that awful day and wants him to drive their #22 Dodge Challenger not once but twice - at Road America in June and at Circuit Gilles-Villeneuve in August.
The organizers of the Montreal race must be thrilled. Villeneuve will sell tons of tickets.
Despite his foolishness and quirky character, JV remains a big fan favourite. You should have heard the crowd going wild when he earned the pole position last year.
Let's just hope he will stay focused and won't ''hit the snooze'' again!
Michael Schumacher is racing for retirement if his run of poor form continues.
That is the view of Nick Fry, the chief executive of Mercedes' Brackley based formula one team.
Despite looking more competitive in 2012 than in the first two seasons of his controversial return to F1, seven time world champion Schumacher has scored just 2 points so far, compared to Shanghai winner and teammate Nico Rosberg's 41.
So after a meteoric career spanning 91 grands prix, will he bow out on a low?
"I am sure if we get to the end of this year and it continues as it has done for the last few races I think he will probably be asking himself that question," Fry is quoted by the Daily Mail.
"There is time to go and we are not making any decisions yet," Briton Fry, who deputised for ill team boss Ross Brawn recently in Barcelona, insisted.
Michael Schumacher, Mercedes AMG. (Photo: WRi2)
It is a similarly worrying time for Schumacher's 2006 Ferrari teammate Felipe Massa, who - as his own contract runs out - is struggling notably against Fernando Alonso.
In an open motivational letter to Ferrari staff this week, team president Luca di Montezemolo insisted Brazilian Massa "must bring home the results we expect from him".
SRT Viper Cup driver David Pintaric got a little wide in his Viper ACR-X at Road America, and the result was the violent end-over-end tumble you see posted above.
In 1972, the Dow Jones closed above 1,000 for the first time, the Olympic Games in Munich were marred by the killings of 11 Israeli athletes, gasoline averaged 55 cents a gallon, Bobby Fischer became the world chess champion and the last U.S.
Big Willie Robinson was as much legend and myth as flesh and bone, and at six feet, six inches and weighing 300 pounds, with 21-inch biceps and a 58-inch chest, there was a lot of flesh and bone.
The outgoing Chevy Malibu -- not quite gone, really, as 2012 models are still available -- was one of Bob Lutz's notable achievements at GM. It pulled Chevy's midsize nameplate out of the rental-car ooze and became a handsome, competent entry in the very tough mid-size sedan segment. The 2013 model builds on some of those achievements, but it might have made a better first impression with its full range of powertrain offerings.
I'll be the first to admit that I don't pay nearly enough attention to Class 6 medium-duty electric trucks. And I think my colleagues around here would have to shamefully concur that we've had a coverage deficiency regarding that particular segment. But your thirst for news about Class 6 medium-duty electric trucks is about to be slaked in a major way. Prepare to have your mind exploded by this, the world-exclusive first test-drive of the Balqon Mule M150.
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