vishkid

Are you from that school that loves a polished knob?

Seriously? Has the interest in f1 dipped so much? Even the last boring season saw comparatively more action from the AL gang! Anybody willing to declare RBR as cheaters OR FIA as utterly stupid, following the flowgate scandal?

Freakin' hell! That's awesome man ..... one of, if not the best!

A vote on who will have the edge in the battle of the team mates '14 http://www.f1fanatic.co.uk/2014/03/08/will-win-battle-team-mates-2014/ With their updated livery Williams look to have the most eye-pleasing car of 2014, a car that's likely to claim podiums at the onset. It's going to be a real toss up in Australia and I'm rooting for scuderia to end up on podium among the mercs, williams & mclarens.

Like The Don said, I've used contact cleaner and you only need a few light sprays. If your MAF has never been touched for over 70k like mine, there might be a bit of gunk that compressed air might not fully remove, but worth a try. Laugfs Auto had a couple of brands to select from.

+1 on this, I got a couple of rainx wipes for free with an ebay purchase I did in the US. Only recently I applied one of them to the windscreen (and other windows of the car) in SL. The results are amazing the (very) few times it rained over the past week. Will definitely grab some more.

Utter disgrace indeed. Must be some desperado who bought the Axela because it was cheaper than a Prius and now hoping to get additional 2kmpl by pasting that badge :|

Oh, forgot that Lotus will get up to 100km of running for their 'filming day' at Jerez. I assume they will be running the car with latest mods by Renault and their output on the 'filming day' could be an indicator of any improvements.

I thought the engine manufacturers were facilitating some sort of information sharing between their teams during the two rounds of testing. So Lotus would partially depend on the feedback and changes coming from Renault, not that it would substitute for the first hand information they missed. The Ferrari's while being definitively slower than the Mercs might benefit from the 'claimed' differences in turbo management that signals at better energy recovery and fuel efficiency. Still if that means (s)lower qualifying and better races - still don't see any significant change from last year.

More details here http://www.caradvice.com.au/268273/global-ncap-slams-indian-small-car-safety-following-mass-failure/ I guess the buyers will decide how cheap their (and their passengers) lives are.

If we are to believe reports, Bernie was pushing for the points of last three races to be doubled and limiting it to Abu Dhabi was a compromise by the team bosses. The only point going for it is to keep the TV and media interest growing till the last moment, which obviously is a big deal when it comes to money making. Also, the next year's entry fee is going to be determined by your points in the current season, so this increment has an impact there too. As a team or a driver, if your car is reliable and if you're consistent - you wouldn't really worry about the double points, IMHO. And what if actually there is a three-way or even a four-way race in Abu Dhabhi (!) for the title, would we complain then or embrace it? (say Raikkonnen is leading the championship by 40 points and he is rammed out of the race by his former team mate in the first lap, I'd love to see how many Kimi fans would smash their TV sets )

Sauber C33 does look a little better but only limited views available.

Hope it doesn't come loaded with the stuff .. ROFL.

Well, the drive towards hybrids (low emission) is in big part regulation driven. There is a lot of climate change rhetoric being spewn by few opportunists like the IPCC and Al Gore, whose friends stood to make big money by leveraging the resulting regulations which followed global scale lies (a la 'An Inconvenient Truth'). Nearly 90% of predictions and data in that (and associated IPCC reports) have been proven to be untrue or distorted from the fact, but they still succeeded in shifting a huge amount of regulations in the US and the EU. Grant that some of these laws are based on very valid points of depleting resources and associated economic justifications, but still they were in large part manipulated by those who stood to profit by the (untimely) push towards so called sustainable power. You can bet your ass that they didn't give two hoots about ensuing econo-cultural and demographic changes that would affect the society for worse. For example, the Hybrid vehicles are now being sold and creating issues in the markets where resource consumption and emission issues are non-existent compared to real problem markets which are shunning these vehicles at large. But the car makers (and law makers) don't care as long as they are making money 'somewhere'! Especially in EU even the super-car makers have been 'forced' to adapt Hybrid drive-trains in to their cars to placate the regulators and ensure their survival in the future. But people are still using optimized fossil fuel based drive-trains instead of going hybrid. But regulations will soon force these down their throats. Those who fail to adapt will perish - case in point is what happened to the (very popular) RX-8 in europe; forced out of europe by the untimely regulations the car had to be taken off production much earlier than planned. I've been in NY for the last 3 months and 99.9% of the hybrids I've seen were cabs - but at least these cabbies know well enough to drive fast without hogging the roads and get their benefits elsewhere.

Ah hell, everyone's going the fugly route but an interesting take by scuderia on the nose. Is it just me or does the side pod air vents on the F14 T much smaller than all the cars unveiled so far?

Ferrari names the 2014 car FIAT. Oh wait .... that's F14 T I voted for F166 Turbo but apparently we live in the txt msg era.

And those who are dissapointed (for some reason) with the new season should definitely try the True Detective. Much highly rated than Sherlock 2.

Ah .. finally, was waiting for MD to do the honors! Glad to know you can vote for the new Ferrari's name .. even though they are complaining all the time, they seem to be the most confident in bringing the full package to Jerez. BTW, it will be 20th anniversary of Senna's passing on May 1st, right? Although no choice really excites me, below are the current numbers chosen by the grid. 1* Sebastian Vettel, R*D B*LL 3 Daniel Ricciardo, R*D B*LL 44 Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes 6 Nico Rosberg, Mercedes 14 Fernando Alonso, Ferrari 7 Kimi Raikkonen, Ferrari 8 Romain Grosjean, Lotus 13 Pastor Maldonado, Lotus 22 Jenson Button, McLaren 20 Kevin Magnussen, McLaren 27 Nico Hulkenberg, Force India 11 Sergio Perez, Force India 99 Adrian Sutil, Sauber 21 Esteban Gutierrez, Sauber 25 Jean-Eric Vergne, Toro Rosso 26 Daniil Kvyat, Toro Rosso 19 Felipe Massa, Williams 77 Valtteri Bottas, Williams 17 Jules Bianchi, Marussia 4 Max Chilton, Marussia TBA, Caterham TBA, Caterham * 5 for Vettel when he loses the championship in 2014

In my (very humble) opinion it's a WOMBAT to look for a non touched up car if you're looking at used vehicles which has been on the road for more than 3-4 years. Driving conditions on the roads are sub-optimal and however safe you drive, there will be someone careless enough to put a scratch or dent in you and that has to be dealt with (in an average day I suffer nearly 20 near misses with bikes and trishaws invading my space and over an year I will hv plenty of smudges, chips or even scratches to show for it). So, it's not the most productive thing to look for re-paints, rather to be able to identify major bodywork and chassis damage could be important. These days I would say the traffic is slow enough so the 'most' accident damages are negligible, say compared to careless driving which could wreck a suspension or ill-maintenance which could wreck an engine. Crosswind, may I suggest you pay a visit to Autoforce as well if you're comparing - iirc, they also use the De Beer system which Arabian uses. In any case, if you build a rapport with the supervisor allocated for your job and insist on your exact parameters and keep an eye on the work in progress (easier said than done), you'll get what you need. If it's a one-day job, I'll spend some time at the place.

So, 12 years a slave and American Hustle win the golden globes. Behind the Candelabra wins the TV movie category. Rush was there in the running for best drama film and supporting actor (for Niki Lauda's role) but won neither.

This is my experience from being involved in mine, family's and friend's repairs; If your repair is only body-work (no electronics, wiring or mechanicals) and you don't mind your insurer footing a handsome bill - go to Arabian Motors, their body-work, paint and finish is really good, so far. Their sourcing is not bad as well. Autoforce, Saranankara road is good for any mechanical, electrical, mod work with an ok paint job. Mercantile Investments in Kohuwala is fast, reliable and again good for mechanical stuff and body work - their paints are good but not as pristine as Arabian. There are many other places (even pretty small joints) that offer good service, but I'm yet to find that place that does everything (body, mechanicals, electronics) perfectly.

Right now, they are offering 2014 3 @ 5.4M, 2014 6 2.0 @ 6.3M and 2014 6 2.5 with all the options @ 7.9M (permit prices included where required) That 6 2.0 with some added options would be a nice bet at around 6.6 - 6.7 given the current prices.

Op to remove clots in the brain done, still in coma ... shocking and sad but this seems specially hard to bounce back from - in the short term.

Unfortunately all mine are above 6000. And they will renew extremely old and expired licences as well - the fine given on the site is slightly less than what govt. gazette suggests, but who's complaining?

They definitely are. They are claiming "It is offered in gasoline, diesel and hybrid versions, making Mazda the first Japanese automaker to offer three different powertrain types in a single model in the Japanese market"