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Starting with its 2015 models, GM will offer buyers free monthly vehicle-diagnostic reports through OnStar, and allow those customers to sign up to receive maintenance notifications from their dealerships.

Jaguar Land Rover has created a training course to attract former military personnel amid a shortage of skilled workers in Britain. Ford and Bentley are also competing for talent with trainee programs as the U.K.'

From GMM

Bernie Ecclestone sees friend Flavio Briatore as the key to rescuing formula one's flagging 'show'.

That is the claim of publications including the Spanish sports daily AS, in the wake of a meeting of team bosses in the Hungaroring paddock on Saturday.

Afterwards, rumours began to emerge that flamboyant Italian Briatore, absent from F1 since his expulsion and ban following the 'crash-gate' scandal, is set to return to the sport in a new advisory role.

Perhaps alarmed by the surprisingly small crowd on F1's traditional German soil a week ago, a big agenda item on Saturday was the need to revitalise the sport's appeal.

The Austrian newspaper Kleine Zeitung reports that a further 30 per cent decline in ticket sales is being recorded this weekend in Hungary.

More and more fans are leaving F1 (Photo: WRi2)

Mercedes team chairman Niki Lauda is quoted as saying he thinks F1's issues are "homemade".

He said the sport is too "controlled" by complex and numerous regulations and penalties that prevent "proper racing".

Lauda thinks the current generation of drivers has been "disenfranchised" by the modern system, and are therefore lacking the "charisma" fans are looking for.

For Ecclestone, the solution could lie within a new popularity working group, chaired by the former Benetton and Renault chief Briatore and set to feature Ferrari, Red Bull, Mercedes and Force India.

Mercedes' Toto Wolff spoke with reporters after Saturday's meeting and was asked about the Briatore rumours.

"There are a couple of people we will sit with together," he said.

It is believed one of the ideas to spice up F1 is a 'success ballast' system, where drivers carry handicap weight according to their position in the championship.

If actually proposed, it will likely trigger controversy beyond even the scale of the much-derided 'double points', which is near-universally condemned for being too artificial.

"The teams get together, they talk about things," Red Bull's Christian Horner told Sky after Saturday's meeting.

"What we need is for the drivers to be the heroes. The cars should be secondary and to do that we need to give more access to the drivers. The fans have got to be able to engage with their heroes."

From nascar.com

Reigning NASCAR Canadian Tire series' champion Scott Steckly won his fourth career race at Autodrome St-Eustache.

The Milverton, Ontario, native raced the No. 22 Dodge to his 16th career victory in Saturday's National 250 from Autodrome St-Eustache.

Steckly now has four wins and top fives in all six career starts at the flat .4-mile oval.

Eighteen-year-old Alex Guenette crossed the line second, followed by L.P. Dumoulin, Anthony Simone and Jeff Lapcevich.
Noel Dowler, Mark Dilley, Andrew Ranger, D.J. Kennington and J.R. Fitzpatrick rounded out the top 10.

Rookie Alex Labbe won his first series pole award in qualifying earlier in the day in just his seventh career start. Labbe led the field to green but was quickly overtaken by Steckly on the backstretch. Labbe stayed close early on, but ultimately exited the event due to problems with his suspension.

Reigning NASCAR Canadian Tire series' champion Scott Steckly won his fourth career race at Autodrome St-Eustache. (Photo: NASCAR.com)

Steckly led the first 104 circuits before pitting under caution. He was able to move back to the front on lap 152 and, with the exception of Guenette on lap 219, he led the balance of the event.

Guenette matched his career-best finish, set the first time in this event a year ago, and matched earlier this year at Circuit ICAR.

With a fourth consecutive podium finish, Dumoulin extended his advantage in the season points standings to 251-234 on Fitzpatrick.

Saturday was the first top-five finish of the year for Simone and the second in four starts for Lapcevich.

The event featured nine lead changes among six different drivers and was slowed by six caution flags. Steckly led a race-high 202 laps, which tied his single-race career-high previously recorded last year at Riverside International Speedway.

Race results - St-Eustache
1 Scott Steckly 250 laps
2 Alex Guenette
3 L.P. Dumoulin
4 Anthony Simone
5 Jeff Lapcevich
6 Noel Dowler
7 Mark Dilley
8 Andrew Ranger
9 D.J. Kennington
10 J.R. Fitzpatrick
11 Jason Hathaway 249 laps
12 Alex Tagliani 248 laps
13 Hugo Vannini 245 laps
14 Ray Courtemanche Jr. 244 laps
15 Matthew Scannell 243 laps
16 Alex Labbe 101 laps, retirement
17 Joey McColm 36 laps, retirement

From GMM

Kimi Raikkonen has urged Ferrari to improve, after the team's blunder cost him a competitive grid spot for the Hungarian grand prix.

Amid his difficult 2014 season and return to the Maranello outfit, the Finn was enjoying a better weekend at the Hungaroring until qualifying.

A clear strategy error meant he bowed out in 'Q1', outqualified even by the junior Ferrari driver Jules Bianchi in the backmarker Marussia.

"The plan was to go out," Raikkonen told reporters, "but the team said 'No, you are fine, you do not need to go out'.

"I questioned it a few times, but they said no need, and we can see the end result."

Undoubtedly frustrated and angry with the decision, Raikkonen insisted: "I don't see the point to shout. The mistake is done.

Raikkonen is angry at Ferrari for ruining his qualifying session (Photo: Ferrari)

"I've made mistakes in the past, I will make them in the future, and people do make mistakes, but there are things we have to change to improve.

"As a team in formula one, as Ferrari, we should not be doing these kind of things. None of us are in our first year.

"Obviously we have to improve, to do things differently because we can see there are weaknesses in the system," he added.

The setback comes at an awkward time for Raikkonen and Ferrari, as both are struggling in 2014 but contractually tied up for the 2015 season.

The struggle is badly hurting Raikkonen's status and reputation, but he insisted on Saturday: "I have not suddenly over the winter lost a few seconds laptime.

"So it's the case of putting things in the right places for me."

Will Saturday in Hungary affect the course of the future?

"It will not influence my decision," the 34-year-old answered. "I have a contract, I fully believe in Ferrari, I've enjoyed a lot of wins and success with them.

"As I say, I trust in the team, but there have to be changes and improvements, which can only happen if we work as a team, as a group, as Ferrari."

From GMM

A thriller at the Hungaroring has thrown fresh fuel on the simmering relations between Mercedes' championship rivals and teammates.

On Saturday, his charred W05 in the background, Lewis Hamilton had expected his 14-point deficit to blow out well beyond 20 by the end of Sunday's race.

Actually, Nico Rosberg's lead has shrunk to 11, with the German's easy control of the race ending with an untimely safety car, and his progress then thwarted when Hamilton refused to obey a repeated team order to let the sister car past.

"Why is he not letting me through?" Rosberg, on a different strategy, asked on the radio.

For once, it was bad luck for Nico Rosberg to have pole position at the Hungarian GP (Photo: WRi2)

Hamilton, who later squeezed Rosberg off the road in a last-lap battle, told the pitwall defiantly: "I'm not slowing down for Nico."

"I would like to be a fly on the wall in the Mercedes debrief room after the Rosberg-Hamilton episode," former F1 driver Allan McNish said on BBC radio.

Rosberg, albeit highly diplomatic afterwards, at least admitted he was "annoyed" with the last-lap incident.

It all sounds like the recipe for a new Monaco-style relationship breakdown between the duo, but this time Hamilton has the pundits on his side.

"Why should he slow down when he is racing?" David Coulthard asked rhetorically. "I think that's a tough call by the team there, in fact it's an unfair call."

Like Rosberg, boss Toto Wolff was also playing diplomat, insisting Mercedes will "analyse" the reasons Hamilton turned down the clear team order.

Lewis Hamilton had another strong comeback in Hungary (Photo: WRi2)

And Rosberg also preferred to keep any fight behind closed doors.

"We need to discuss interally, that's better," he said.

Hamilton, notably "grumpy" behind the podium according to interviewer Martin Brundle, justified his defiance on the basis that he "Would have lost points to Nico.

"He would have beaten me," Hamilton told British broadcaster Sky.

"I don't really want to comment, I'm sure it (the team order) was for the right reasons, but I'm grateful I took the right decision for myself.

"I was racing for myself, not for him."

From GMM

Honda is targeting nothing other than victory as it prepares to return to formula one in 2015.

Every other engine supplier in F1 - Mercedes, Ferrari and Renault - subsidises the huge costs of producing a highly-sophisticated turbo V6 'power unit' by also selling it to customers for millions of euros.

Japanese manufacturer Honda, however, is focusing solely on its works deal with McLaren.

"We are not thinking about that," said Honda's F1 chief Yasuhisa Arai when asked by Speed Week about potential plans for customers.

"At the moment we want to concentrate only on our return (to F1) for the 2015 season."

Honda's most recent F1 foray was not successful, with the last 'earth dreams'-liveried works car in 2008 devoid of sponsorship and ninth of the eleven teams.

"You cannot compare," Arai insists. "We are approaching very differently in 2015, starting with the fact that we will no longer make the car ourselves."

When asked what the goal for 2015 is, he answered: "To win grands prix with McLaren. It is for this reason we decided to partner with McLaren. We want to make history."

McLaren has not been its usual self these past two seasons (Photo: WRi2)

Undoubtedly, Honda wants to revive its glory days as a works engine supplier, when it won numerous titles in the 80s and 90s, including the near-perfect 1988 season with McLaren.

"We expect points in every race; we expect victories," said Arai.

He admitted the trigger for Honda's decision to return was the new and cutting-edge 'power unit' rules, featuring a small turbo engine and energy recovery systems.

"This is a huge challenge for the engineers and the way forward for the industry," said Arai.

"But this is not a one-way street -- the formula one project will also benefit from our experience with hybrid technology in production models," he explained.

Arai dismissed speculation McLaren will test early versions of the 2015 engine in a modified car, revealing that the new Honda will only run for the first time at Jerez next year.

And finally, he was asked about the mild tone of F1's new regulations.

"Engine noise is not an issue for an engineer," Arai smiled. "But if the fans want more noise, then we should not ignore them."

Australian Daniel Riccardo won his second race of this season, this week-end during an eventful race at the Hungaroring.

The Red Bull driver was helped by some rain showers before the start and two safety car interventions, which shuffled the order.

Photo: WRi2

One of the highlights of the race was when he overtook both Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso in the final four laps.

After several attempts to pass the hyper-defensive Hamilton, Ricciardo eventually made a great move stick around the outside and then on lap 68 muscled past Alonso to claim the lead and his second grand prix win of the season.

Fernando Alonso, Lewis Hamilton (Photo: WRi2)

"Winning this today, it honestly feels as good as the first. It sank in a lot quicker this one, so crossing the line today I knew what was going on a bit more and it's like I could enjoy it immediately rather than it being delayed, it was awesome," Daniel said afterwards.

"To have to pass guys again to win the race, as I did in Canada, makes it a lot more satisfying, knowing that we did have a bit of a fight on our hands.

Daniel Ricciardo (Photo: WRi2)

"In this environment now I feel I am a different driver and in a way a different person, a different sportsman than I was last year. I've got a lot more belief in myself and it's cool, I definitely feel like I belong here now and I've got confidence!"

Race results - Hungarian Grand Prix (round 11 of 19)
1 - Daniel Ricciardo (Red Bull RB10-Renault) - 70 laps in 1.53'05"058
2 - Fernando Alonso (Ferrari F14-T) - 5"225
3 - Lewis Hamilton (McLaren MP4/29-Mercedes) - 5"857
4 - Nico Rosberg (Mercedes W05) - 6"361
5 - Felipe Massa (Williams FW36-Mercedes) - 29"841
6 - Kimi Raikkonen (Ferrari F14-T) - 31"491
7 - Sebastian Vettel (Red Bull RB10-Renault) - 40"964
8 - Valtteri Bottas (Williams FW36-Mercedes) - 41"344
9 - Jean-Eric Vergne (Toro Rosso STR9-Renault) - 58"527
10 - Jenson Button (McLaren MP4/29-Mercedes) - 1'07"280
11 - Adrian Sutil (Sauber C33-Ferrari) - 1'08"169
12 - Kevin Magnussen (McLaren MP4/29-Mercedes) - 1'18"465
13 - Pastor Maldonado (Lotus E22-Renault) - 1'24"024
14 - Daniil Kvyat Jean-Eric Vergne (Toro Rosso STR9-Renault) - 1 lap
15 - Jules Bianchi (Marussia MR03-Ferrari) - 1 lap
16 - Max Chilton (Marussia MR03-Ferrari) - 1 lap

Safety car (Photo: WRi2)

Retirements
Esteban Gutierrez
Kamui Kobayashi
Sergio Perez
Nico Hulkenberg
Romain Grosjean
Marcus Ericsson

Fastest lap of the race: 1'25"724 by Nico Rosberg

Drivers' championship
1.Rosberg 202; 2.Hamilton 191; 3.Ricciardo 131; 4.Alonso 115; 5.Bottas 95; 6.Vettel 88; 7.Hulkenberg 69; 8.Button 60; 9.Massa 40; 10.Magnussen 37; 11.Perez 29; 12.Raikkonen 27; 13.Vergne 11; 14.Grosjean 8; 15.Kvyat 6; 16.Bianchi 2.

Constructors' championship
1.Mercedes 393; 2.Red Bull-Renault 219; 3.Ferrari 142; 4.Williams-Mercedes 135; 5.Force India-Mercedes 98; 6.McLaren-Mercedes 97; 7.Toro Rosso-Renault 17; 8.Lotus-Renault 8; 9.Marussia-Ferrari 2.
*Unofficial results

Daniel Ricciardo, Red Bull RB10 (Photo: WRi2)

From GMM

Niki Lauda has accused fellow Austrian and F1 rival Dr Helmut Marko of playing games to secure the services of world champion Sebastian Vettel.

Earlier in Hungary, the paddock was alight with speculation Vettel has been made offers - some "outrageous" - to switch from Red Bull after the 2015 season.

The source of the rumour was undoubtedly Marko.

"I don't know which sources Helmut has, or doesn't have, but they seem to vary, let's say," Vettel said in Hungary.

Lauda, the team chairman at Mercedes, categorically denied he is out fishing for a potential new teammate for Nico Rosberg.

Reigning world champion Sebastian Vettel is in the middle of a tug-of-war between Lauda and Marko, (Photo: WRi2)

"I know absolutely for sure and clearly that we have not made any offer to Sebastian," the triple world champion is quoted by Speed Week.

Lauda, 65, accuses Marko - the Red Bull figure most directly in charge of developing, signing and re-signing drivers - of playing contract poker ahead of negotiations with Vettel over his services for 2016 and beyond.

"What is Helmut doing?" Lauda asked rhetorically. "He is closing Sebastian's doors, by forcing people to make these public denials.

"But I am sure Sebastian will eventually figure it out and ask him: 'What are you doing?'"

From GMM

Lewis Hamilton was at the wheel of a shiny new Mercedes for the start of Sunday's Hungarian grand prix.

Team boss Paddy Lowe is quoted by Auto Motor und Sport as revealing that "pretty much everything" was damaged when a fuel leak set the championship-chaser's W05 on fire in Hungaroring qualifying.

With full spare cars no longer allowed, Mercedes mechanics worked through the night to build Hamilton a new car from scratch from a spare monocoque.

Hamilton will not effectively be penalised for changing his gearbox and engine, as he is already at the very rear of the field for the race, so Lowe decided simply to break 'parc ferme' regulations.

Lewis Hamilton walks away as the marshalls put out the fire that destroyed his Mercedes W05 (Photo: WRi2)

"We needed to get the car out of parc ferme and rebuild from scratch if we want to be ready in time," he said.

"We can look later to see what components (from the qualifying car) have survived," added Lowe.

Briton Hamilton will therefore start the race from pitlane.

But the news is even worse for the 2008 world champion, who is already 14 points behind teammate Nico Rosberg in the drivers' points standings.

The lost engine in Hungary means Hamilton is now onto his fourth set of components for the season, out of a maximum five for 2014 before penalties begin to apply.

Nissan is expanding by 226,326 vehicles a U.S. recall of older models equipped with defective airbags made by Takata, Nissan said in an amended filing posted Saturday by U.S. safety regulators.

The Chinese owner of Fisker Automotive hopes to launch a second model that would join the $100,000 Karma luxury plug-in hybrid in three years.

The global marketing chief for the VV brand, Simon Thomas, is leaving after about a year in the post. Thomas will be succeeded by Xavier Chardon, the VW brand's European sales chief.

Mitsubishi is overhauling its flagship assembly plant in Japan to slash production costs and boost capacity as it readies for increased output of plug-in hybrid vehicles.

The record recalls this year are creating capacity bottlenecks in the service shops of the country's largest new-vehicle dealership group.

Car- and ride-sharing programs are changing the way city dwellers get around and the way millennials think about car ownership.

From GMM

Lewis Hamilton versus Nico Rosberg is not the only raging battle in formula one.

Red Bull's Christian Horner lost his temper with "the negativities" being spread by journalists during the Friday press conference in Hungary.

"All we do is focus on the negatives and it has to be said, it gets pretty boring for us to sit up here and field these questions," he said.

Red Bull Racing's Christian Horner was angry at some journalists (Photo: WRi2)

Not only that, amid some alarming TV ratings and dwindling crowds for the Hockenheim-Hungaroring double-header, it is believed the issue of the media's role to play was discussed at length during Bernie Ecclestone's meeting with key teams on Saturday.

Journalist Ralf Bach, reporting for Germany's Sport Bild, was in a particularly feisty mood on Friday when he questioned the teams' morality in simply following Ecclestone to controversial race destinations.

Bach said in the FIA press conference that "Bahrain is killing their own people", and wondered if they would also blindly follow the F1 supremo "to North Korea".

McLaren team boss Eric Boullier did not respond to that question, but rumours on Sunday suggested he was furious and even asked the FIA to consider revoking Bach's accreditation.

Eric Boullier believes journalists should stop "spreading negativity around" (Photo: WRi2)

A McLaren team source denied that, but did admit that Boullier had been upset with some of the questions posed on Friday.

And The Times quotes the Frenchman as saying: "By spreading negativity around, we distract people from being passionate and watching us and we stop people who could be potentially interested to watch because we are negative.

"The negativity is part of the problem of why we have an audience which is going down," Boullier added.

From press release

Less than a week after winning the World Challenge Series race in Toronto, Montreal driver Kuno Wittmer was back in action in the United SportsCar Championship (USCC), for the seventh round of the season at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course.

Wittmer and his teammate Jonathan Bomarito drove their Dodge Viper SRT to victory in GT Le Mans class.

"It was not a relaxing race, far from it," said Wittmer.

Photo: Richard Prince/SRT Motorsports

"It wasn't easy during my stint, the gaps were very small amongst the contenders in our category. At one point, I dropped to eighth place and I had to climb back."

In the standings, Wittmer and Bomarito jumped from fourth to second, only thirteen points from the leaders.

The series now heads to Elkhart Lake for the next round of the season.

Photo: Richard Prince/SRT Motorsports

From GMM

Even F1's engine suppliers will take a 'summer break' in August.

Eleven races into the season, and after the hectic back-to-back dash from Germany to Hungary, there are a lot of tired faces in the paddock this weekend.

They are looking ahead to the rare and deliberate three-weekend gap between Hungary and the resumption of hostilities in Belgium.

Not only that, teams must close their factories for a mandatory period of cost-cutting and rest, with even the activity of email servers strictly forbidden.

But the factory shutdown applies only to the actual teams, not the engine suppliers.

It means Renault, but also the engine operations at Ferrari and Mercedes, can keep working.

"If the units responsible for the engines want to continue to work, they can," Renault's Remi Taffin said at the Hungaroring.

"But, to be honest with you, even in Viry there will not be much activity. We want to give the people a break.

"We will not work at 100 per cent during this period, because at some point everyone needs a break," he added.

But even a break will not end all of Renault's headaches, after a pre-season crisis and an ongoing struggle to continue to improve the turbo V6 'power unit'.

One looming problem is that reliability issues, and necessary upgrades for the troublesome unit, means that many Renault-powered drivers will unavoidably exceed their allocation of five engines during the second half of the season.

"We do not hide the fact that sixth components will have to be used by some of our customers," said Taffin, acknowledging that it will result in penalties for the drivers.

"Of course it's not what we planned, but after three or four races we realised that it was going to be very difficult.

"Caterham is in pretty good shape in that regard -- they will be able to meet the limit. But for the rest it's more complicated," he admitted.

From GMM

F1 team bosses have swerved around the political crisis in the wake of the MH17 air disaster.

The sport is scheduled to race on Russian soil for the first time in October, but there is pressure to cancel or boycott the race amid the deepening controversy.

"Obviously what's going on in that part of the world at the moment is of huge concern to everybody," Williams deputy chief Claire Williams said in Hungary.

"But we've always said we try to disengage from taking a political angle on these things."

Williams' colleagues broadly agree, insisting Bernie Ecclestone - an avowed admirer of the highly-controversial Russian president Vladimir Putin - and the governing FIA set the calendar.

But in the wake of F1's handling of the Bahrain crisis, and after teams raced in other controversial lands like China, and in 2016 will head to Azerbaijan, reporters on Friday expressed frustration with the teams' apparently blind 'follow Bernie Ecclestone' position.

Photo: WRi2

"Would you follow Ecclestone to North Korea?" wondered Sport Bild correspondent Ralf Bach.

Red Bull team boss Christian Horner responded by slamming the "negativity" of the questions posed during the FIA press conference.

"We should be talking about the drivers," he said, "we should be talking about the spectacular racing at the last grand prix, yet all we do is focus on the negatives and it has to be said, it gets pretty boring for us to sit up here and field these questions.

"If you've got these questions, please point them at Mr (Jean) Todt or Mr Ecclestone rather than the teams," Horner added.