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Mercedes-Benz announced it would have eight DTM Mercedes AMG C-Coupés in the line-up for the 2015 DTM season.

Mercedes-Benz will rely on the services of three teams in the DTM next season.

French team ART Grand Prix will make its debut in 2015 in the internationally popular touring car series alongside the established teams fielded by DTM development partner HWA AG and Mücke Motorsport.

Mercedes-Benz and ART Grand Prix have enjoyed a long-standing partnership in Formula 3. Working together in the Formula 3 Euro Series, ART Grand Prix (known as AMS Formule 3 to begin with) and Mercedes-Benz achieved 78 victories, 55 pole positions and 70 fastest laps during 2003-2010.

The outfit won the team championship seven times (2003-2009) and took the drivers' title six times (2004 Jamie Green, 2005, Lewis Hamilton, 2006, Paul Di Resta, 2007 Romain Grosjean, 2008 Nico Hülkenberg, 2009 Jules Bianchi).

Mercedes AMG C-Coupés. (Photo: DTM)

From Williams

Williams Martini Racing Formula 1 team announced Tuesday a new multi-year technology partnership agreement and sponsorship with Avanade, a global business technology, cloud and managed services provider.

Avanade and Williams will develop a suite of tools to ensure that the team fully optimises its new enterprise platform. Williams will also be drawing on Avanade's expertise to make sure that future digital and cloud investments lead to improved business performance both on and off the race track.

The partnership agreement and sponsorship will see the Avanade logo appear on the side pod leading edge of the team's racing cars and team apparel from the 2015 season onwards.

Avanade helps customers realize results in a digital world through business technology solutions, cloud and managed services that combine insight, innovation and expertise focused on Microsoft technologies.

The company, founded in 2000 by Microsoft and Accenture, has 22,000 professionals in more than 20 countries.

Following successful trial runs held at the final three Grands Prix of the 2014 season, the Formula 1 teams and the FIA gave their approval to the introduction of the new virtual safety car system next season.

The need to reduce the speed of the cars under the yellow flags became a priority after Jules Bianchi's terrible crash at the Japanese Grand Prix.

The new procedure requires the drivers to slow down to a certain speed under the yellow flag, without the need to deploy the Mercedes safety car our on the race track.

An imposed speed limit is set in a specific sector of the circuit rather than around the whole lap.

Once the teams approve the rules, they will be added to the 2015 F1 Sporting Regulations.

Autosport magazine adds Tuesday that more trial runs will be held during the three winter test sessions before the virtual safety car is introduced for good in Australia in March 2015.

Virtual Safety Car at Interlagos, Brazil. (Photo: WRi2)

The IZOD IndyCar is set to introduce a certain number of changes to their sporting regulations for 2015.

Standing starts, which were introduced in 2013 at Toronto and utilized at Long Beach, Indianapolis road course, Houston 1 and Toronto 2 in 2014, have been eliminated for the 2015 season.

“Most of the tracks we run on, few meet the space criteria for our cars, which are bigger than most formula cars,” IndyCar president of competition and operations, Derrick Walker said.

“There is also some development needed with the launch. I wouldn't say it's out of the picture for the future. We know the fans enjoy it, and we love it, too,” he explained.

Last May, the Grand Prix of Indianapolis started with a massive crash when polesitter Sebastian Saavedra stalled at the start and was hit hard in the rear by the cars of Carlos Munoz and Mikhail Aleshin.

From Red Bull

On Friday an era ended when Sebastian Vettel officially parted company with Infiniti Red Bull Racing Formula 1 team - but it's been a great six years and everyone wanted to say goodbye properly.

And so today Sebastian popped in to the factory for a final round of applause, several - thankfully brief - speeches and a selection of going away gifts.

Sebastian Vettel and Christian Horner. (Photo: Twitter/Red Bull Racing)

The lobby of Building Two, home of the race bays, was festooned with German flags and hot chocolate and pretzels were served.

For those who've been on Mars for the last six years, a video loop of Seb's greatest hits was playing. The whole team assembled - at least as many of the personnel that could fit into the race bays with the rest hanging off the rafters on the mezzanine - and the team had one last group photo with Sebastian.

Photo: Infiniti Red Bull Racing

Horner presented Vettel with a goody bag to take away. It featured an espresso cup, some very tight red Speedos and a pair of sunglasses - none of which have ever been required in Milton Keynes.

Seb also got a 50 per cent scale model bull with his championship laurels engraved on the plinth.

Photo: Infiniti Red Bull Racing

One of his championship-winning cars will also be finding its way into his garage - but not just yet because, as Christian explained, "we don't want it turning up in Maranello."

Vettel waved goodbye and went over to the main factory where he spent the rest of the day signing kit and memorabilia for pretty much everyone in the factory.

Sebastian Vettel. (Photo: Infiniti Red Bull Racing)

From GMM

Just as Carlos Sainz settles in at Toro Rosso, it emerges that a major sponsor is staying with the Red Bull-owned team after all.

When Sainz started out in the British and European F3 categories in 2012, we reported that he was doing so with the direct backing of Cepsa.

The Spanish oil company has also been Toro Rosso's major backer.

But while Red Bull remained undecided recently over promoting Sainz into F1 for 2015, it emerged that Cepsa was contemplating leaving Toro Rosso.

Spain's El Confidencial reported last month that Toro Rosso contemplating about whether to keep Jean-Eric Vergne on board next year "could be interpreted as pressure on Cepsa not to withdraw".

Ultimately, Sainz was signed up, and the newspaper now reports: "In the end, the oil company will continue to sponsor the Italian team".

Cepsa brand on Toro Rosso. (Photo: WRi2)

Red Bull's driver programme manager Dr Helmut Marko, however, insists that 20-year-old Sainz "convinced us" by winning the Formula Renault 3.5 title.

And he described the Spaniard's Abu Dhabi test in the Red Bull car recently as "very successful".

"He's done everything we expected, so I'd say he was the natural choice," Marko added.

Test and reserved driver for the Caterham and Marussia Formula 1 teams this season, Alexander Rossi has decided to turn his attention to American racing and the IZOD IndyCar series more specifically.

In an interview he gave to Racer.com's Marshall Pruett, Rossi explained that after he spent the last six years in Europe, working his way up the ladder, he feels he has little chance to breaking into F1.

The American driver took the wheel of an F1 car on a few occasions, but has yet to take the start of a Grand Prix.

The two teams he was in contact with - Caterham and Marussia- both closed their doors.

"For 2015, I'm very excited about the prospects in IndyCar, and I'm not the first person to say it's some of the best racing on the planet,” Rossi told Racer.com.

"I have been speaking with IndyCar teams for a while now, and have made multiple trips to Indianapolis to hold meetings about next season," Rossi continued.

"There have been some positive things to come from those meetings, and some things are moving forward, but there are still a lot of boxes that need to be ticked to finalize everything.

"I want to be in a competitive car, and after coming up the European ladder and being able to win races in all the championships I competed in, I feel I'm ready to do the job at home and compete straight away.

"All of the experience racing in GP2, being able to win there, and all of the F1 testing will help me right away in road racing here, and when it comes to ovals, I have no preconceived notions that my experience will translate. It will definitely be a new frontier for me, but racing drivers will figure out whatever they need to figure out when something new is put in front of them. It just takes time, and it's actually something I can't wait to get into," Alexander Rossi said.

From press release

During the inaugural Motorama Custom Car & Motorsports Expo, Vintage Auto Insurance will unveil the winner of its 2014 Vintage Auto Championship Series.

The Motorama show takes place March 13, 14 & 15, 2015 at the International Centre, across from Toronto's Pearson Airport.

The Vintage Auto Championship Series is a competition comprised of 14 ‘Best of Show' cars that were determined at a series of prominent car shows and cruise events throughout southern Ontario during the summer of 2014. Two additional ‘wild card' entries will be added to the mix, creating the final ‘Sweet 16' list of eligible championship contenders.

An online vote being conducted at VintageAutoInsurance.ca will whittle the list down to two finalists. Both of these cars will be on display in the Vintage Auto Insurance booth at Motorama, and the overall champion will be announced live on the Johnsonville Stage during the show.

The identities of the finalists will be revealed in the coming months, along with details about the time of the championship announcement at Motorama.

A House panel on Wednesday is expected to press Takata for the results of recent tests that could indicate whether the supplier's airbag inflators might pose a safety hazard outside hot, humid areas.

Group 1 Automotive Inc. is expanding its presence overseas with the purchase of three BMW-Mini dealerships in the United Kingdom.

Two Japanese executives from different Japanese suppliers have each agreed to plead guilty to a charge of conspiring to fix the prices of auto parts sold to Honda, the U.S. Department of Justice said Monday.

Executives of Takata, Toyota, Honda and BMW are scheduled to testify at a committee hearing of the U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday morning.

The United Auto Workers union said it will press managers of the Daimler's U.S. plant to respect the right of workers to discuss organizing a local union while on the factory floor.

The UAW, backed by an NLRB ruling, pressed managers at the Mercedes-Benz assembly plant in Alabama to respect the right of workers to discuss organizing a local union while on the factory floor.

General Motors is recalling 316,357 older-model SUVs and sedans for a problem with malfunctioning headlamps.

Chevrolet, which wants a broader, more consistent social media strategy, has hired former Ford social media manager Craig Daitch.

Robert Rewey, a former Ford sales and marketing chief who helped the company become dominant in the SUV market, pioneered leasing as an alternative to traditional financing and pushed a controversial consolidation of Ford's dealership network in the...

Toyota Motor Credit could face an enforcement action from U.S. authorities over its pricing of auto loans through dealerships and could be forced to reimburse borrowers or pay a fine.

Toyota has announced a wide-ranging consolidation of its diesel engine, manual transmission and braking businesses.

France could start to phase out diesel-engined passenger cars as it rolls out a programme to identify the most polluting vehicles on its roads.