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From GMM

F1's 'blown exhaust' and 'Coanda' era will be definitely over in 2014.

Germany's Auto Motor und Sport reported on Friday that the FIA has dictated that the turbo V6s only have one exhaust outlet, and that it must exit beyond the diffuser.

That will mean that, unlike in previous years, the phenomenon of engine exhaust gases having an aerodynamic effect will be almost completely removed.

Even the "area behind the exhaust pipe is a forbidden zone", Auto Motor und Sport added.

Red Bull RB8. (Photo: WRi2)

In 2014 Formula 1 will enter a new era. The most significant technical change to hit the sport in more than two decades is introduced with the switch from V8 to V6 turbo engines.

The revolution is such that experts no longer talk about an engine but rather a power unit.

Engine regulations form the major part of the coming revolution, with the introduction of a new generation of Power Units that combine a 1.6-litre V6 turbocharged engine with energy recovery systems that will dramatically increase efficiency by harvesting energy dissipated as heat in the exhaust or brakes.

Photo: Renault Sport F1

The maximum power of the new Power Unit will exceed the output of current V8 F1 engines however fuel efficiency will be radically improved. With only 100kg permitted for the race, the new units will use 35% less fuel than their predecessors.

The rules for 2014
• 1.6L direct injection turbo V6
• Unique pressure charging architecture: single turbine and compressor (plus E-motor allowed)
• 5 Power Units per driver per season in 2014, reducing to 4 in subsequent years

Strong focus on improved vehicle fuel efficiency / reduced fuel consumption:
• Fuel quantity for the race limited to 100 kg initially (-35% from now - currently unlimited)
• Fuel mass flow rate limited to 100 kg/hr max - currently unlimited
• Potent Energy Recovery Systems (ERS) are allowed

The chart below illustrates the basic technical differences between the current V8 engines and next year's V6 power units.

Chart: Renault Sport F1

Marc Landreville, the defending champion of the Drift Mania Canadian Championship (DMCC), started the 2013 season in Montmagny on a weird note. With his Nissan 240SX S14 suffering from serious engine problems during the practice sessions, he had to find another car to qualify for the competition. Luckily, Landreville's good friend and Pro Am driver, Jonathan Guitard, agreed to share his own Lexus SC400.

Talk about a contrast: one has right-hand drive, and the other has left-hand drive! Needless to say Landreville had to make a few adjustments. Then again, “it's still a car,” he pointed out.

At the end of the day, the Montreal-based drift expert missed the top of the podium by a step. However, that was good enough to earn him precious points entering the second round of the 2013 DMCC next weekend in St. Eustache.

I had a chat with Marc Landreville after the event, and he kindly answered all my questions.

Marie-Laurence Paquin (MLP): So Marc, how did you wind up here?

Marc Landreville (ML): For as long as I can remember, I've always been a huge fan of rear-wheel drive cars like Nissans and Mazdas. I used to revere guys like Marco Santos and Haig Kanadjian, so I decided to buy my own Nissan.

I took part in my first amateur comp in 2008 with a Nissan Skyline GTR that was riding on 15” winter tires -- and I finished in second place! A while later, I entered a Pro Am event, and ended up third. The judges immediately elevated me to the Pro Class, and the very next day I was drifting my way to second place. I've been doing it ever since.

MLP: As the defending champ, do you feel some extra pressure this year?

ML: I'm not stressed, if it's what you're asking. I'd like to repeat, obviously. I also have other projects for this season, like participating in a few rounds of the U.S. Formula Drift Championship. Now, the rules are not quite the same, and neither is the budget. I was thinking about four rounds, but my car wasn't ready on time, so I will enter only two: one in Wall, New Jersey, and another late in the season in Irwindale, California.

MLP: What's driving you to take part in the Formula Drift Championship?

ML: I want to see how I stack up against other drivers and perform on other tracks. Of course, because of my sponsors and all, I will take part in every round of the DMCC this year.

MLP: Who will be your toughest opponents in 2013?

ML: Good question. A number of drivers are benefiting from new cars. Guys like Pat Cyr, Dave Briggs, Francis Tassé, Mike Pollard, and Jeff Laflamme will certainly put on a great show!

MLP: Were any modifications made to your car over the winter?

ML: Not really. Except for regular maintenance work and some little upgrades here and there, there's nothing major to report. My team and I will instead get busy on a Mazda RX-7 for next summer, so my Nissan will go up for sale at the end of this year.

Marc Landreville would like to thank some of his sponsors including: Lacroix Tuning, Bar le Garage, Standard suspension, Budweiser, Vipec Powersports, Le roi du camion, Affichage.ca, Canada Tire, PB Kréations, Mishimoto, Gulf, and Elf.

Photo: Joel Couture

From GMM

As Kimi Raikkonen moves closer to filling Mark Webber's spot at Red Bull next year, Pastor Maldonado has denied talking to Lotus to replace the Finn.

It has been suggested Venezuelan Maldonado, with his 2012 Barcelona-winning speed and his millions in PDVSA backing, might be a good choice as Lotus faces the possibility of replacing Raikkonen.

Kimi Raikkonen, Lotus. (Photo: WRi2)

But "Regarding the rumours, I am 100 per cent focused on Williams," the 28-year-old told Spanish newspaper Marca at Silverstone.

"To this day I have not spoken to any team, this is true and I hope to be here next season. I say that because it depends not only on me but on other factors. Let's see what the future brings," Maldonado added.

"I see the rumours every day but it's hard to imagine something happening. Clearly I'm not happy with the performance this season, I will not hide that and we need to solve our problems.

"But I believe that we have a great potential in the team and we cannot stay where we are.

"We have all the tools to fight for the championship, so we're not going to give up," he added.

Toro Rosso's Daniel Ricciardo set the fastest time in a rain soaked first practice session for the British Grand Prix while Nico Rosberg emerged fastest on a dry track in the afternoon.

Ricciardo, who is one of the candidates for the Porsche bound Mark Webber in 2014, set his initial lap time of over two minutes at around the 76-minute marker, which kick-started what had been a relatively quiet session.

Nico Rosberg, Mercedes AMG (Photo: WRI2)

However, he managed to improve over a period of eight laps to set a quickest time of 1m59.249 seconds.

Sauber's Nico Hulkenberg was second 0.784s behind Ricciardo, but managed to stay ahead of third placed Pastor Maldonado, and local favourite, Mercedes' Lewis Hamilton, who had led briefly led at one stage.

Hulkenberg's Sauber team-mate, Esteban Gutierrez and Williams' Valtteri Bottas rounded out the top-six, in a session which only featured 11 drivers.

Notable incidents of the session were Charles Pic spinning at the final corner and damaging his front wing, after being caught out by the treacherous conditions. Gutierrez also aquaplaned at Turn 1 and despite taking the corner sideways, managed to escape damage free.

Free practice 2
The second practice session saw Nico Rosberg once again underline Mercedes' one-lap advantage to set the quickest time by 0.3 seconds ahead of the Red Bulls of Mark Webber and Sebastian Vettel.

Force India's Paul di Resta and Rosberg's Mercedes teammate, Lewis Hamilton, gave the British crowds something to cheer about after finishing fourth and fifth in conditions which were vastly improved from the morning washout.

Despite the improved weather, Felipe Massa managed to have his third accident in as many races, after he lost control of the Ferrari at Stowe corner, and removed its front end.

As a result, the Brazilian has only had seven laps of running ahead of tomorrow's qualifying session and finished the session at the bottom of the timing boards.

FP1 pace setter Daniel Ricciardo was sixth in the Toro Rosso, ahead of team-mate Jean-Eric Vergne, Adrian Sutil, Romain Grosjean and Ferrari's Fernando Alonso who rounded out the top-10.

Despite finishing 10th, the Ferrari showed Red Bull matching race-pace on its longer runs.

McLaren had another quiet afternoon and is suspected to be continuing to suffer from ride height issues, which have plagued its difficult 2013 car, with Jenson Button and Sergio Perez finishing 11th and 14th respectively.

Kimi Raikkonen also had a relatively quiet session in 13th, but it is expected that Lotus has not fully shown its potential this weekend as it plans to use its Drag Reduction System later over the weekend.

Grosjean was also not without upgrades to the team's E21 car, as he ran upgraded bodywork on the #8 car.

From GMM

An irked Christian Horner has revealed he found out about Mark Webber's decision to leave Red Bull only an hour before the rest of the world.

"I suppose an hour's notice is a bit short," the Briton told reporters at Silverstone. "I think the guys at the factory would be disappointed to learn about it on the internet."

Horner's comments sparked immediate rumours of ill feeling as the Australian departs F1 for Porsche, with memories of the 'Multi-21' affair and strained relations with Sebastian Vettel and Helmut Marko still fresh.

"I informed Christian before the announcement which contractually I should do, so that's what we did," said Webber.

The 36-year-old said the way the news broke was not supposed to be a slight on his colleagues on the factory floor at Milton-Keynes.

"They've been superb for me on the floor there," said Webber, "but Porsche were very keen to make the announcement. It was about Porsche and Mark Webber today."

Mark Webber and Christian Horner. (Photo: WRi2)

And in fact, it seems Red Bull's billionaire owner - and key Webber ally - Dietrich Mateschitz knew about the plans well in advance.

A sponsorship deal for 2014 and beyond may even have been done during the week.

"It (Webber's move) has been known by us for a few weeks," Austrian Mateschitz is quoted by Speed Week.

"We have been talking about it quite a few times," he added, amid reports Webber visited Mateschitz in Salzburg this week before returning to Britain.

"Mark will remain a part of the Red Bull family," said Mateschitz.

The World Motor Sport Council met Friday at historic Goodwood House, the 300-year-old home of the Earl and Countess of March to validate the latest modifications to the 2014 Formula 1 technical rules.

To begin, the FIA President and the Commercial Rights Holder advised that negotiations regarding the Concorde Agreement were close to conclusion with the intention the contract between the FIA and FOM will be signed in the near future.

Modifications to 2014 F1 technical rules:

Further to a request from Mercedes, it will be permitted to supply engines to a maximum of four Formula One teams in 2014.

A penalty point system for drivers will be introduced. If a driver accumulates more than 12 points he will be banned from the next race. Points will stay on the driver's licence for 12 months. The amount of points a driver may be given for infringements will vary from one to three depending upon the severity of the offence.

The procedure for a driver to be given the chance to give back any advantage he may have gained by leaving the track has been adopted.

A significant reduction in the amount of wind tunnel testing and CFD work has been imposed to help reduce costs and potentially allow two teams to share one wind tunnel.

Four two-day track tests will be allowed in season in place of the current eight one-day promotional days and the three-day young driver test. These will take place at tracks in Europe on the Tuesday and Wednesday after a race in order to ensure minimal additional resources are necessary.

Track testing will now also be permitted in January 2014 in order to allow earlier testing of the new power units.

For safety reasons all team personnel working on a car in a race pit stop will be required to wear head protection.

Each driver will be provided with one extra set of tyres for use only during the first 30 minutes of the first practice session on Friday, to encourage teams to take to the track at that time without having to worry about using valuable tyre wear.

A number of new regulations have been confirmed to govern the new, far more complex power units. It is agreed that only five power units may be used by each driver for the whole season. Any use of an additional complete power unit will result in that driver having to start the race from the pit lane. Any changes of individual elements above the permitted five, such as turbocharger, MGU or Energy Store, will result in a 10 grid place penalty.

No manufacturer will be allowed to homologate more than one power unit during the homologation period from 2014-2020. Changes to the homologated unit will continue to be permitted for installation, reliability or cost saving reasons.

Drivers must now use a gearbox for six consecutive events, an increase from the current five.

No car may use more than 100kg of fuel for the race, from the time the lights go out at the start of the race to the chequered flag. This will be monitored by the use of an FIA approved fuel flow meter.

The pit lane speed limit, which is currently set at 60km/h for the free practice sessions and 100km/h for the qualifying practice and race (60km/h for the whole event in Melbourne, Monaco and Singapore), has been amended so it is set at 80km/h for the whole event (except the three races mentioned which would stay at 60km/h for the whole event). This is for safety reasons, as most accidents happen during the race when the speed limit is higher; drivers also have very little chance to practice stopping from 100km/h until the race.

The National Automobile Dealers Association, ending a practice of more than four decades, said today that beginning in 2015 it will hold its annual convention and expo Thursday to Sunday instead of Friday to Monday.

A top Ford executive said today the auto sales pace in the United States may have moderated after the Federal Reserve signaled it could begin unwinding its accommodative monetary policy.

Call it a minibus, a microbus, a hippie bus or a station wagon, the Volkswagen Type 2 is a versatile vehicle.

The Senate today unanimously approved Charlotte Mayor Anthony Foxx to head the Department of Transportation, a role held for the past four years by former congressman Ray LaHood.

In 1994, we said the Jeep Wrangler had more and#8220;guts than a government muleand#8221; in our in-depth performance profile.

According to the Porsche-lovers at flatsixes.com, an unknown

Studio Canal released a new featurette about and#8220;Rush,and#8221; the upcoming Formula One drama, on Tuesday.

Nissan, aiming to boost its U.S. market share and increase North American production, plans to add 900 workers at its assembly operations in Smyrna, Tenn. The plant added 810 employees last fall.

2013 Family Crossover Comparison - Day Four

When you choose the best family crossover in America, it's all about character.

This is Automobile Magazine's Family Crossover Comparo, our comparison test of the kind of vehicle that you see during America's summer vacation, the three-row family crossover.

Photo Gallery: 2013 Family Crossover Comparison - Day Four - Automobile Magazine

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News 27 Jun, 2013

Reports suggest that troubled Peugeot is running out of cash and turning to US-owned GM as a last resort

Workers at GM's Korean factories are planning a partial walkout in a dispute over pay.

Street-truck enthusiasts looking for V8 power with V6 fuel economy, look no further.

Longtime GM executive and former Opel CFO Walter Borst will join truck and engine maker Navistar International as executive vice president and CFO, effective Aug. 1, Navistar said Thursday.