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From Formula1.com

Reigning world champion Lewis Hamilton had to wait six long years between his two titles. But it was all worth it apparently.

The gap actually equals the second longest such period in F1 history. Niki Lauda holds the record: he clinched his third drivers' crown in 1984, some seven years after his second championship triumph.

Niki Lauda, 1984 world champion (Photo: WRI2)

Hamilton became Mercedes' first F1 champion since Juan Manuel Fangio in 1955, and the first British multiple champion since Jackie Stewart in 1971. He also moved on to 33 Grand Prix triumphs, overhauling previous British record holder Nigel Mansell's long-standing tally.

Of course, he also put his mark on the 2014 season. For example, he won more races (11), led more laps (495), and finished on the podium more often (16) than anybody else. And he holds the biggest (30.135s) and smallest (0.636s) winning margins of the season.

It appears organizers of the European Grand Prix in Valencia are involved in the latest corruption story to come to light in F1.

The city of Valencia hosted fives F1 races between 2008 and 2012.

But when the local government changed that year, the event was considered too expensive and never made it back onto the calendar, as plans to host the Spanish Grand Prix instead with Barcelona failed to materialize.

"(New) Valencia president Alberto Fabra is determined to correct the nonsense of a grand prix that he inherited from his predecessor and has cost a fortune to the public purse," Spanish newspaper Diario Sport reported at the time.

"In this context, it would be very difficult to explain to the taxpayers of the region that more money is being allocated for F1."

The Associated Press now reports that the country's Prosecutor's Office is wondering why the race was put in the hands of Valmor Sports, a private company with no experience in motorsport.

Francisco Camps, Fabra's predecessor, Dolores Johnson, a tourism official, and Jorge Matinez, a shareholder of Valmor Sports, are all under investigation for alleged corruption.

F1 driver Romain Grosjean was impressive, this week-end during an ice racing meeting in the French Alps, for round three of the Trophée Andros season.

It wasn't Grosjean first racing experience on ice, the Frenchman having already competed in the Trophée Andros in 2011. He even won a race that season, at Isola 2000.

This experience proved useful as the Lotus F1 team driver qualified third and then finished third on Friday, behind the wheel of a Renault Clio prepared by the Dubourg family, with whom he is good friend.

Romain Grosjean, Renault Clio (Photo: WRI2)

Unfortunately, Grosjean could only manage eighth on Saturday. He nonetheless proved he had lost none of his touch on ice.

As dominant as usual, championship leader Jean-Philippe Dayraut claimed his 50^th and 51^st career wins.

Opel CEO Karl-Thomas Neumann has warned top managers that the General Motors unit's 2016 profit target is under threat from economic setbacks, according to a German daily paper.

Opel CEO Karl-Thomas Neumann has warned top managers that the General Motors unit's 2016 profit target is under threat from economic setbacks, according to a German daily paper.

Sketches of two mysterious cars, one obviously a retro design, and the other a modern one, appear on a Christmas card sent to just-auto.com.

Automobile recalls surpassed the 60 million mark in the United States for the first time in a single year, largely because of the rush to prevent more deaths from defective General Motors ignition switches and Takata airbags.

Suppliers, regulators, automakers and consumers are struggling to understand the scope and implications of a defect in Takata airbags that has led to recalls of millions of vehicles.

AvtoVAZ blamed supplier problems for Ladas failure to have the No. 1-selling car in Russia last month after the Kia Rio outsold the Lada Granta.

The second-generation Chevrolet Volt will have the driver-controlled battery regeneration system used in the Cadillac ELR.

Social media is used for more than just keeping up with friends. It's also being used to find people who have defaulted on their auto loans.

Suppliers, regulators, automakers and consumers are struggling to understand the scope and implications of a defect in Takata airbags that has led to recalls of millions of vehicles.

Russia's AvtoVAZ says supplier problems -- not declining demand -- are to blame for its Lada brand's failure to have the No. 1-selling car in the country last month.

From WRC.com

Rally Sweden organizers asking fans to commemorate the life of 1979 world champion Bjorn Waldegard and help raise money for cancer research.

Waldegard, the first man to win the drivers' championship, died on 29 August this year. He was 70. The Swede, who won 16 WRC events during his career, had been receiving treatment for cancer when his condition deteriorated.

Now the team behind Waldegard's home rally are inviting people to celebrate his memory by lighting a virtual star for him at thestar.se.

So far almost 3,000 have been lit by fans from around the globe -- and for every star lit Rally Sweden will donate 1 Swedish Krona to the Swedish Cancerfonden charity.

From GMM

Bernie Ecclestone has confirmed reports he remains determined to shake up F1's engine rules.

We reported that, at Thursday's Strategy Group meeting in Geneva, the F1 supremo did propose to scrap the turbo V6 regulations for 2016 but it did not produce a "definitive result".

But according to Germany's Auto Motor und Sport, he made clear his strong desire for 'louder, more powerful and cheaper' engines for 2016, perhaps to be normally aspirated, 1000 horsepower and costing just 10 million euros for a customer supply.

"An expert group must deliver results (on the proposal) by the end of January," claimed correspondent Michael Schmidt.

Ecclestone made clear his strong desire for louder, more powerful and cheaper engines for 2016 (Photo: WRI2)

But Ecclestone told The Independent newspaper late on Friday that at the meeting, in emerged that in fact "Nobody wants to change the engines, they are all happy".

"It's not exactly great progress," he is quoted by F1 business journalist Christian Sylt.

"The next step is that we will have another meeting in January and the teams will have to come back with something positive. If they don't, we will say this is how it has got to be," Ecclestone added.

From GMM

Daniel Ricciardo's surprising pace was "probably a factor" in the decision taken by Sebastian Vettel to leave Red Bull.

That is the claim of team boss Christian Horner, who admitted it is "weird" to see the quadruple world champion already wearing Ferrari red after so much success with the premier energy drink-owned team.

German Vettel caught everyone by surprise in early October when he announced he was leaving Red Bull.

But it was already known that the 27-year-old, wearing the number 1 on his car for the fourth season in a row, was no fan of the new turbo V6 formula.

"He didn't like what F1 had become and was quite vocal about it -- didn't like the engines, the noise, the way the car felt," Horner told the British broadcaster BBC's season review.

Sebastian Vettel had to play second fiddle to Daniel Ricciardo in 2014 (Photo: WRI2)

The Briton said it was "Seb and Kimi (Raikkonen)" -- now to be Ferrari's race pairing for 2015 -- that suffered the most with the radical new regulations.

"He (Vettel) got very frustrated the car wasn't doing what he wanted it to do and of course to compound that his teammate is winning a couple of races and performing at the level he was."

Vettel's teammate, of course, was Australian Ricciardo, stepping up from Toro Rosso and surprising F1, Red Bull and even himself with his stellar form.

Ultimately, Ricciardo won three grands prix compared to Vettel's none in 2014, and finished the drivers' title behind only the dominant Mercedes duo.

Horner thinks Ricciardo's shock form was "probably a factor" in Vettel's decision to move, with a "defining moment" coming at Monza where the German was audaciously overtaken by his teammate.

"He was enormously frustrated after that grand prix," said Horner.

"It was at a time where, knowing Sebastian as well as I do, I could see he was very distracted and it was obvious something was at the back of his mind," he added, referring to the advanced negotiations with Ferrari.

"By the time he got to Singapore you could see he was a different person," Horner said. "So, no, it wasn't a great surprise in the end."

It appears Multimatic Motorsports, a Canadian company, will be instrumental in Ford's anticipated return to the 24 Hours of Le Mans, in 2016.

Autoweek revelead earlier this week that the Detroit manufacturer was working on a factory-backed program to race in the United SportsCar championship and at La Sarthe, where Ford has not won outright since 1969.

This racing effort would involve the new GT-successor Ford will unveil at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit, next month.

Even though the official announcement regarding the racing plans is expected only in a few months, Autoweek claims the cars are to be run by Ganassi Racing, which currently races EcoBoost-powered Riley prototypes in the USC, and built by Multimatic Motorsports.

Le Mans (Photo: WRI2)

Based in Markham, Ontario, Multimatic has been involved in many important automotive projects over the years. It's motorsport division has even won Le Mans before, in the LMP675 division.

The racing relationship between Multimatic and Ford dates back to 1992, a season during which Toronto native Scott Maxwell took top honours in the Firestone Firehawk national endurance sports class championship, behind the wheel of a Ford Taurus.

Without giving out too many details, Robert Kubica confirmed his plans to take part in the Monte-Carlo Rally.

"We sent an entry for the Rallye Monte-Carlo today," he wrote on his Facebook page Friday, as registration for the WRC season-opener closed. "See you on the stages!"

An announcement regarding the rest of the Pole's plan for 2015 is expected next week. But apparently, Kubica, who considered going back to road racing, will be back in the WRC at the wheel of a Ford Fiesta RS.

According the British magazine Autosport, Kubica is either going to return with M-Sport, or go to A-Style, the Italian team that recently helped him win the Monza Rally Show and Bettega Memorial Rallysprint.

Kubica at the Bettega Memorial Rallysprint (Photo: Facebook)

The various issues that slowed down the first two outings of the new Honda power unit will no longer be a problem, according to McLaren boss, Eric Boullier.

Test driver Stoffel Vandoorne only managed a handful of laps over the two days of the Abu Dhabi post-season tests, aboard an interim MP4-29. But after a thorough investigation, most of the teething problems have been solved, Boullier says.

"We changed a little bit the schedule and we sent Honda, McLaren people and the car itself back here [to Woking] for full investigations," the Frenchman is quoted as saying by Sky Sports.

Stoffel Vandoorne did get to drive much in Abu Dhabi (Photo: WRI2)

"They worked very hard for a week and they found out everything. A recovery plan is in place. Part of it has already been fixed, so there are now some further tests on dynos to validate."

Boullier says the problems did not affect one particular area of the car. It was just a general issue with the hardware: "It was not only one problem. There were hardware issues which obviously made the wrong software code.

"So then we had to first find out what was wrong in the hardware system to fix the software system."

FCA US said today it will replace driver-side airbag inflators in as many as 3.3 million more older-model vehicles, in a capitulation to a demand by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.