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LaFerrari XX may have lapped N?rburgring in 6:35

Enthusiasts around the world - ourselves included - have been anxiously awaiting the ultimate supercar showdown. After all, we seldom see three of the world's preeminent exotic automakers come out with such closely matched machinery in such close proximity as we have with the Porsche 918 Spyder, McLaren P1 and Ferrari LaFerrari. That showdown could occur on no better a playing field than the Nürburgring, but the automakers haven't exactly been playing ball.
Porsche set down a lap time of 6:57, staking its claim as the fastest street-legal production car ever to lap the vaunted Nordschleife. Rather than challenge Zuffenhausen head-on, though, McLaren has only said that the P1 has clocked a time of under seven minutes, and though Ferrari has been testing the new LaFerrari at the Ring, it hasn't released any official time at all. Maranello may, however, be preparing to announce an even faster time.
According to word we're receiving from across the pond, Ferrari has clocked a lap time of 6:35 - only it wasn't achieved in the road-going LaFerrari, but in the upcoming track-bound LaFerrari XX. That model, which was just confirmed and spied last week, will follow in the footsteps of the Enzo-based FXX and the 599XX, which itself recorded a lap time of 6:58 in 2010. Because it's not street-legal, it didn't contend for the same honors, and within a couple of months was pipped on the leaderboard for non-street-legal vehicles by the Pagani Zonda R by over ten seconds.

Ferrari production to increase under Marchionne

The head of any company has to juggle the relationship between supply and demand. Of course, that applies to automakers too, even ones as high-end as Ferrari. And as with many other decisions, the way Ferrari has addressed supply and demand has come down principally to the principal.
Enzo Ferrari may have only wanted to sell as many vehicles as he needed in order to fund his company's racing department, but with the F40 - the last model made under his watch - Ferrari ended up increasing supply to meet growing demand. However, after Luca di Montezemolo took over in the wake of Enzo's passing, he started constricting supply. He figured Ferrari could sell 400 units of the F50, for example, so he built 399. More recently, Montezemolo undertook a course of action that spread Ferrari into more markets, while simultaneously constricting supply to increase demand and thereby profitability.
It's been a winning formula for Ferrari. Just days ago, the company announced record earnings up by 14.5 percent in the first half of 2014 over the same period last year, which itself had seen a 7.1-percent increase over the year before. Clearly the strategy has worked, but Montezemolo's successor is already eying a different approach.

Race Recap: 2013 Japanese Grand Prix flips several scripts [spoilers]

Japan's Suzuka circuit is a great track that all the drivers love, but it doesn't usually provide the most thrilling, head-to-head racing. Where it does excel, however, is with surprises and "What just happened there?!" moments, and this year it was no different.
It started with Mark Webber in his Infiniti Red Bull Racing out-qualifying his teammate Sebastian Vettel for the first time this year. They were followed closely by Lewis Hamilton in the first Mercedes-AMG Petronas, the still-solid Romain Grosjean again outdoing teammate Kimi Räikkönen, Felipe Massa racing for another seat in Formula One and putting his Ferrari in fifth, then Nico Rosberg in the second Mercedes, Nico Hülkenberg in the first Sauber, Fernando Alonso in the second Ferrari, and Räikkönen continuing to do himself no favors by qualifying tenth.
For the second year in a row, the lights going out was the cue to start the first corner action...