Tag Archives: ferrari

Hi all!

Still on the road Stateside… with an extra-enjoyable installment coming up. This time we’re flying south from New York and heading for the capital of Texas. Houston? No. Dallas? No. Austin? Yes! Why? To see Formula 1 crack America, of course!

Our US tour so far has gone something like this: LA – Arizona – Chicago – Louisville – Miami – Boston – NYC. And now we’re back in the sunny south and revving up for F1. Formula 1 has tried repeatedly in the past to make its “formula” work in the USA as well as it does in much of the rest of the world, but never quite made it – like “soccer” has never really taken off here fully. But F1 of course reeaally wants to crack Terra Incognita – as successfully as… well, let’s see… Scotch whisky, French wine, and Stolichnaya! I think choosing Texas as the venue was a tad  ambitious – since of course you Don’t Mess with Texas – but hey, if they pull it off here, America will be in the bag!

More: Few nuances of the Austin track …

Rides come in all sorts of different shapes and sizes. On water skis, under sail, on horses, bikes, motorbikes, rollerblades… But for some reason what really gets my heart pumping are rides of the very fast kind in motor cars. And here I am – at the stage of the season of the Ferrari Challenge. Italy, Tuscany, the Mugello Circuit.

Ferrari Challenge? Let me give you a quick guide. It’s something between the German autobahns and Formula-1, and everyone’s in a Ferrari F458 Italia. This is what it looks like:

More: The roar of the Ferrari engines in Ferrari chassis …

Ni hao, all!

Shanghai – what a place. It’s really quite something. I mean in terms of its size (massive), the quantity of skyscrapers (plenty), the size of two of its airports (huge), and the number of stack interchanges and double-decker highways that crisscross the city (it contains probably several hundred miles of eight-lane roads – incredible). Blade Runner-esque Tokyo – move over! But I’m never lucky with the weather when I visit. This time Shanghai was once again covered with a haze so thick I could only see a few miles into the distance.

More: Maglev experience and F1 Shanghai-style

Hi all!

A little about my Ferrari FF test drive…

Now, I fully understand that for the vast majority in this world to drive a Ferrari or in fact any super car is a mere dream, and so my tales about Ferraris and Formula-One races may all seem a bit… politically incorrect – Clarkson style. But when out of the blue the Ferrari plant in Italy invites me over there to have a go in one of their mean-machines – well, I’m hardly gonna turn that down now, am I? And so why not let others know about it too?

Let’s face it, should ever the dream come true for you and you also one day get the chance to get behind the wheel of a Ferrari – it’s not as if you’d keep the experience to yourself, right? You’d tell others – wouldn’t you? :)

More: now with a clear conscience, I’ll continue…

I give you the new model of the Red Snowmobile!

Italy (and most of Europe) is buried under snow and frozen solid. It meant that the brand new Ferrari F1 car was unveiled online this year – the guests just couldn’t get there, myself included. I’m enjoying the photos of a severe Italian winter from the airport in Cancún.

// you can come up with your own captions :)

Cars and the climate collide….

And here’s a video of the presentation:

You can find out more about our partnership with Scuderia Ferrari at a dedicated webpage or follow the updates on Facebook and Twitter.

Hi everyone,

I’m back again, this time delivering you an experience from Zhuhai, China (literally “Pearl Sea”, 珠海) – one of the seven tracks of the recently launched Intercontinental La Mans Cup series. As luck would have it I was invited to the race on my way to a business meeting (and didn’t regret it one bit!).

Although the Zhuhai race carries the proud Le Mans 24 name, it is more of a cover version of the real thing. It’s not that much of an endurance race – it runs for just six hours – but it still has the same teams, drivers, cars, rules etc. But not quite the same crowds of enthusiastic spectators…yet. Numbers were low, compared with both Le Mans events and with Chinese motorsports in general, but I think it’s only a matter of time before China, as it already has in many other fields, overtakes the established leaders. And this particular event has something else going for it: in Chinese there are plenty of hieroglyphs for “Le Mans” :)

More > 6 hours in 7 pictures (and a link)

Hi everyone,

You won’t believe it, but I’m in Dubai… again!

This time we held our annual European Partner Conference at the Jumeirah Zabeel Saray hotel, on the beach of the iconic Palm Jumeirah. More than 100 partners from all over Europe worked hard for two days – and played hard at Ferrari World in neighboring Abu-Dhabi.

“I was supposed to travel to a small Muslim country, but here I see no less than Manhattan!” said one guy in the party, blinking in amazement. “Dubaihattan,” I corrected him.

More > Dubaihattan views. And sunrise too.

Check out this photo I found in the local paper La Gazzetta Sportiva. Alonso looking cool – but look at the background!

The start of the race was really crazy… The adrenalin was pumping like mad (in the stands too).

See more > Did you know what F1 pilots drink before the start? …

This season’s eighth Formula 1 Grand Prix took place on June 24-26 in Spain on the relatively new and very innovative Valencia Street Circuit – one of the four urban curcuits to be used this season: 57 laps and 308 kilometers (191 miles) of tense rip-roaring supercar contest providing more than an hour and a half of delight for F1 fans.

The Valencia track is one of the newest in Formula 1. The city hosted its first race only in August 2008, after its industrial port area was transformed into a genuine cultural must-see centering on its race track. Incidentally, the first winner on the course was Felipe Massa – driving for Ferrari.

Read more > Forza Ferrari!

So, 24 Heures du Mans 2011 is over. Can you imagine it was held annually since 1923? A couple of words about the race …

More: 24 Heures du wroooom! du Mans 2011.. . .