Auto News 5

Hyundai and affiliate Kia hired Albert Biermann, chief engineer for BMW's M performance cars and light trucks, to develop performance models and improve ride and handling.

Jaguar's new XE will be the brand's first model made in China. The midsize premium sedan will be built alongside the Land Rover SUVs in Changshu.

Despite suffering heavy losses in Russia's sinking economy, global automakers say they still expect a long-term payoff from their huge investments there.

It won't be a merry Christmas for the Mini enthusiast who bought a classic Mini Cooper in England and had it shipped to the United States.

In Japan, automakers achieve recall rates that automakers in North America could only dream of.

It took a while, but Lotus F1 Team paid Kimi Raikkonen his salary for the 2012 and 2013 seasons.

According to El Mundo Deportivo, the Finn's average salary for those two seasons was around $7 million. But the team also owed him some $35 million in bonuses.

Having signed for Ferrari at the end of 2013, Raikkonen skipped the last two races that year. He mentioned a back surgery, but some believed he was simply fed up with the delays.

Kimi Raikkonen, Lotus E21 (Photo: WRI2)

Now much better off financially, Lotus finished paying the 2007 world champion's earnings, and all is well according to nextgen-auto.com.

"The situation with the creditors is much better compared to last year," confirmed Lotus' executive director Matthew Carter.

"(Raikkonen's salary) was a big part of our debt, but it has been paid in full by now."

From GMM

Marussia seems to be in the final throes of collapse, but things are actually looking up.

The backmarker team sat out the US-Brazil double header in November amid financial troubles, and according to F1 business journalist Christian Sylt, administrators sold nearly 1000 items in an auction last week to pay creditors.

But Bernie Ecclestone says that if the team can sort out its problems, he will release to it the prize money for finishing the 2014 season in ninth place, said to be more than $50 million.

"If Marussia can find somebody who can prove they have enough money to run for the whole year, and we agree they are right, we would leave things as they are," the F1 supremo told The Independent.

Marussia is collapsing under the ownership of Andrey Cheglakov, who Ecclestone said is a "nice guy".

There is good news around the corner for Marussia (Photo: WRI2)

Rather, the 84-year-old blames the team's management.

"He was badly advised and got into the team without really knowing too much about it," he said.

"I think if he had had somebody with him that could do a little bit more, he would still be in formula one today," Ecclestone told Russia's Ria Novosti news agency.

The other backmarker facing collapse is Caterham, who also missed the US-Brazil double header but returned for the Abu Dhabi finale thanks to a desperate round of controversial online crowdfunding.

Sylt revealed in the Sunday Express newspaper that a crunch meeting is taking place on Monday, in which unpaid creditors will be asked to approve a potential sale of the team.

Caterham's chances of surviving may be better than Marussia's because it managed to make it to Abu Dhabi for the 2014 finale, even though the crowdfunding scheme was controversial and blue-chip sponsors were replaced by tiny backers like a local pub paying less than $8000 for its logo.

"It laid bare the margins made on F1 sponsorship," Sylt wrote in the Telegraph, "but it kept the team's wheels turning."

Caterham's administrator, Finbarr O'Connell, said the fact Caterham raced in Abu Dhabi justified the way the money was raised.

"Having concluded a successful race event," he told the Sunday Express, "the administrators have continued to have encouraging discussions with several potential buyers, a process that is still ongoing."

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.