From GMM
After spending his entire career to date with Force India, Adrian Sutil on Wednesday began his next F1 chapter.
"Look who we found getting comfortable in his seat," the Swiss team Sauber said on Twitter, adding a photo of German Sutil, 30, at the wheel of the 2014 car.
Sutil, who began his career in 2007 with Force India's former guise Spyker, was at Sauber's Hinwil headquarters for a seat fitting in the new C33, which has already passed the FIA's static and dynamic crash tests.
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| Photo: Twitter Sauber |
It is not Sutil's first visit to Hinwil. Team boss Monisha Kaltenborn said he actually visited "at the end of September to have a look at the infrastructure".
"Although I have known for a while where I wanted to go," Adrian Sutil added, "in the end the negotiations took a bit longer than planned."
And he told F1's official website this week: "I felt that it was time for a change and we worked hard for it for months to make it happen."
From GMM
Kimi Raikkonen has still not received all of the money he is owed by Lotus.
Towards the end of the season, and just before he set off for back surgery that meant he missed the last two races of 2013, the Finn revealed he has not been paid "one euro" by the Enstone based team this year.
Raikkonen said he almost called a halt to his Lotus career before the race in Abu Dhabi, saying at the time: "I came here only because hopefully we found an understanding on the certain issues we have been having."
But then he missed Austin and Brazil, ostensibly only because of his back surgery.
Team owner Gerard Lopez, whose Lotus outfit has been waiting for a crucial buy-in deal by the investment group Quantum, has now revealed that Raikkonen is in fact still owed some money.
Asked if Lotus has paid the Ferrari-bound Finn in full, he is quoted by Finland's
MTV3: "Not entirely.
"Some of it, yes, we reached an agreement on the payment in Abu Dhabi," added Lopez.
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| Kimi Raikkonen, Lotus. (Photo: WRi2) |
It has been reported that Lotus remains deeply in debt, with some employees and suppliers going unpaid.
Gerard Lopez acknowledged: "There have been delays. But the amounts that I have heard (in the media) are completely ridiculous. I will not go into detail, other than to say that the amounts we owe are not big. We will pay, just as we always have done."
General Motors, which acquired Saab in 2000, announced plans to eliminate the brand from its operations on December 18th, 2009.
Hit hard by the recession earlier that year, GM officially put Saab on sale in February. Dutch-based automaker Spyker Cars made a bid, but GM ended talks in December due to deadline problems, and later announced that Saab would be eliminated the following year if it failed to secure a buyer before the close of 2009.
Yet, on January 26th, 2010, GM officials confirmed that they had come to an agreement with Spyker. The transaction did little to resurrect the agonizing Saab, which again changed owners in 2012 (NEVS).
Now, there is hope on the horizon. The Trollhättan plant is still open, and a new production model -- the 220-horsepower Saab 9-3 -- rolled out on December 2nd, 2013.
Source : wikipedia.org
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| Photo: Wikipedia |
From GMM
Kimi Raikkonen has made his first appearance since undergoing back surgery a month ago.
The Finn, who sat out the last two races of his Lotus career, made a visit to Ferrari's Maranello headquarters on Tuesday, where he met up with his new race engineer, Antonio Spagnolo.
Italy's
Autosprint said Andrea Stella will remain Fernando Alonso's engineer in 2014, which means former Massa engineer Rob Smedley is almost certainly headed to Williams.
It will be a tough gig for Italian Spagnolo, with 2007 world champion Raikkonen famous for his radio impatience during grands prix -- his 'Leave me alone, I know what I'm doing' spiel is now legendary in F1 circles.
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| Photo: Ferrari |
With Kimi Raikkonen replacing the Williams-bound Felipe Massa, it has been a period of significant change at Ferrari.
Also arriving from Lotus, James Allison is now Ferrari's clear new technical director, relegating fellow Briton Fry to being in charge simply of trackside operations, according to Italy's
Autosprint.
And Allison said Ferrari's recent work on updating its wind tunnel and simulator technologies will pay off.
"Now we can say we have moved on from being maybe the fourth or fifth team in terms of the tools we have, to once again being at the cutting edge and everything is in place to open up a new Ferrari era," he said.
Autosprint said Ferrari will officially launch its 2014 engine, the all-new turbo V6, on Thursday.
Ford is taking its dealership training program worldwide. It is part of the automakers' ongoing effort to improve customer service and increase buyer loyalty.
Toyota will be back in the Super Bowl in 2014, this time to help launch the brand's redesigned Highlander mid-sized crossover.
Which is safer, a car sold in the United States or in Europe? Automakers see little or no difference, but they have struggled to win over regulators, who are wary of an industry push to make safety standards interchangeable across the Atlantic...
GM will raise sticker prices on the next-generation Chevrolet Suburban and Tahoe by $1,000 to $3,000 when the big SUVs go on sale in the spring.
Acura is following Dodge's Ron Burgundy act with some comedic commercials tailor-made to go viral.
Peugeot's new 308 is a key model for a company facing challenging times. Dave Leggett took it for a drive and heard from Peugeot about an industrial strategy that has involved major investment in new product.
Brian Fulton has been promoted to vice president in charge of Mercedes-Benz Financial Services USA.
The board member leading Microsoft's search for a new chief executive expects an appointment to be made early next year, the first time the company's board has been so specific on timing.
Volvo will pull the wraps off a concept at the Detroit auto show to illustrate the direction of styling for the redesigned 2015 XC90 crossover.
A few weeks ago, the NHTSA issued a recall for
A top UAW official said the union wants to eliminate the two-tier wage system that pays new automotive workers at a lower rate than veterans.
Nissan hopes its revived Datsun brand will lure Russian buyers who might have bought used cars.
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