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2013 NASCAR Canadian Tire series rookie of the year, Alex Guénette, has announced a five-race schedule in Canada's top stock-car championship, which includes one event a Mosport and three stops in Québec.

In 2014, Guénette is switching teams to race with King Autosport, Martin Roy's Beloeil-based operation. With him, arrives stock-car veteran Mario Gosselin, who will help prepare the cars.

Gosselin also works on Guénette's US program in the ARCA and Camping World Truck series, from his shop in Florida.

Alex Guénette (Photo: Facebook)

"I am very happy to return to the NASCAR Canadian Tire series with the experience I gained last year," said the 18-year-old.

"(I) feel very comfortable with Martin (Roy), Mario (Gosselin) and the whole team both in the shop and at the track. We have already worked together and achieved excellent results together in NASCAR trucks last year and in Late Model racing in the US over the last three years.

"Mario is interviewing several experienced crew chiefs for me and I know we will run well in every race. We are shooting for nothing less than victories."


Alex Guénette's 2014 NASCAR Canadian Tire schedule:
May 17, 18 - Canadian Tire Motorsports Park (Bowmanvile, ON)
June 14 - Autodrome Chaudière (Vallée-Jonction, QC)
July 5, 6 - ICAR (Mirabel, QC)
August 9, 10 - GP3R (Trois-Rivières, QC)

From GMM

A respected German journalist has denied rumours Michael Schumacher has woken up from his coma.

The reports late on Friday suggested the seven time world champion, already confirmed to be having "moments of consciousness and awakening", had woken up and recognised his wife.

The reports said the great 45-year-old's manager Sabine Kehm had confirmed the news to German television RTL.

"Sorry, but those rumours from Spain are apparently not true," Nicola Pohl, a respected correspondent for the major German daily Bild, said.

"Kehm just texted me (saying) she hadn't confirmed anything to RTL," she added.

Norwegian rally driver Mads Ostberg has been Volkswagen Motorsport's most consistent opposition this season, despite the Citroen DS3 WRC not suiting his natural driving style.

Ostberg spent three season behind the wheel of the Ford Fiesta RS WRC before joining Citroen at the end of last season.

So far in 2014, the 26-year-old has finished twice on the podium and four times in the top 10, in four rallies with the DS3. This means he is third, behind VW Motorsport drivers Sébastien Ogier and Jari-Matti Latvala, in the overall standings.

But the 67-rally veteran says there is more to come from him, as he learns to adapt his style to the characteristics of his car.

Mads Ostberg, Citroën DS3 WRC (Photo: Citroën Racing)

"(Earlier) I tried to make the car (DS3 WRC) suit me by continuing to drive it a bit more sideways like I did with the Fiesta," he told WRC.com.

"But I understood that was not quite so easy and that the theory behind the Citroen is totally different.

"You are driving much more on the front of the car and with more understeer. The car is much more stable and braking all the way into the corner gives the right pressure on the front wheels to be able to turn the car.

"It's a special way of driving and for me, it's improving all the time. It's making me faster and faster."

The new rules introduced this season in F1 have been tough on McLaren's Kevin Magnussen, the 21-year-old rookie's father, Jan, thinks.

Jan Magnussen, himself a former McLaren driver, is currently a factory driver for Corvette in the United SportsCar Championship (USCC). His career highlights include four class wins at the 24 Hours of Le Mans.

The 40-year-old Dane has also entered 25 grands prix between the 1995 and 1998 season, with a best finish of sixth at the 1998 Canadian Grand Prix.

Jan Magnussen, Corvette C7.R (Photo: janmagnussen.dk)

"So far he's had a real strong debut," Magnussen Sr told IMSA.com, reflecting on his son's first few races in F1.

"He had a podium finish in his very first race (a second-place finish in Australia), which is very unusual.

"There are lots of rule changes in F1. Everybody's on a really steep learning curve with all the technology, but also it's tough on Kevin, because he's new to F1."

Asked if he would like to race sports car with his son one day, Magnussen answered: "Hopefully, (Kevin) will have a really long career in Formula One.

"But if he ever does do sports cars, hopefully I will be retired by then."

Swiss-born racer Simona de Silvestro is the latest woman to get behind the wheel of an F1 car.

The 25-year-old completed a total of 112 laps of the Fiorano test track, Saturday, for a total of 336 kilometres behind the wheel of a Ferrari-powered Sauber C31.

The former IndyCar racer, who became a Sauber affiliated driver two months ago, is working towards obtaining her "superlicence".

"What impressed me most was the downforce of the car and the braking," she said.

"When I did my first lap the brakes were cold, but even then the decelaration was beyond what I had experienced before. The g-forces are significantly higher compared to what I was used to in IndyCar. Overall, I'm happy with my first day in a Formula One car."

Simona de Silvestro, Sauber C31 (Photo: Twitter)

"Simona did a very solid job today," added test engineer Paul Russell.

"It was immediately clear that she is an experienced driver. It was as good a start in a Formula One car as you could hope for, and you couldn't really ask for more today."

De Silvestro will be back on track tomorrow for more mileage.

It is unclear however what her future with the team might be, as Sauber already has two reserve drivers - Sergey Sirotkin and Giedo van der Garde - who are also pushing for race seats.

From GMM

Sebastian Vettel will definitely be at the wheel of a new 'Suzie' for the start of the European season.

Earlier this week, we reported that Red Bull was looking into whether an underlying fault with his 2014 car was contributing to the reigning world champion's struggle to keep up with teammate Daniel Ricciardo.

So when a new version of the RB10 is built by the Milton-Keynes team, "Vettel will get it," Red Bull's Dr Helmut Marko said.

Marko has now told Germany's Auto Bild that Vettel's new 2014 chassis will be ready for the first European race, at Barcelona mid next month.

Sebastian Vettel, Red Bull RB10 (Photo: WRi2)

"It's already been decided," he said.

"In Barcelona, Sebastian will have a new chassis, because sometimes even a small hairline crack can have large consequences," Marko explained.

He said Vettel has run into this sort of trouble before, and overcome it.

"In 2012, Sebastian had problems compared with Mark Webber, but after a chassis change suddenly everything was much better and when he regained his confidence, he was almost unbeatable and won the title," added Marko.

Vettel always gives his F1 cars a female name, and for the 2014 season, Adrian Newey's V6-powered RB10 is called 'Suzie'.

Video-game maker Codemasters is back in the news today, this time with its next driving game for PS3, Xbox 360 and PC.

GM has doubled the size of its South Korean design center to take on a host of new tasks, from full-scale modeling to 3-D printing, as the carmaker aims to fortify its global hub for small-car development, design and manufacturing.

Fiat has taken another step toward fully integrating its wholly owned subsidiary Chrysler Group by merging its global information technology platforms under one IBM banner.

UAW Vice President Joe Ashton has been nominated to become the first representative from the union to join General Motors' board of directors, the company said in its proxy statement filed today.

PSA Peugeot Citroen owners voted to support a 3 billion-euro ($4.2 billion) capital increase to boost funding at Europe's second-largest carmaker, which has been unprofitable for the last two years.

Delphi Automotive has reported first quarter 2014 operating income up 12% to US$483m on revenue up 6% to $4.3bn.

GM is reshaping executive incentive packages based on earnings, global market share and quality. GM began making the changes after the U.S.

Asimo, Honda's kid-sized robot, is the product of three decades of work in image processing, voice recognition and artificial intelligence -- essentially, the pursuit of judgment by a machine.

Shareholders of PSA/Peugeot-Citroen approved a rescue deal that makes Chinese carmaker Dongfeng and the French state core shareholders of the struggling automaker.

Fiat has taken another step toward fully integrating its wholly owned subsidiary Chrysler Group by merging its global information technology platforms under one IBM banner.

Inspired by a recent trip to the Auburn Cord Duesenberg Museum in Auburn, Ind. (more to come on that soon!), we're diving into the historical film archives for some A-C-D goodness.

and#8220;Mad Max: Fury Roadand#8221; comes out in 2015 with Tom Hardy (Bane, "The Dark Knight Rises") playing Max Rockatansky in the wasteland that used to be the Australian outback.

Welcome back to another session in the Hell Garage, where you choose between a pair of projects that match coolness with torment.

Automakers beat government goals for the first year of President Barack Obama's new fuel economy standards, with only Jaguar Land Rover lacking enough EPA-issued credits to cover its obligations through the 2012 model year, according to an analysis...