2013 Ferrari California. Silver Over Black. 1500 Miles. Great Options. San Diego on 2040-cars

Auto blog

Berger and Vettel swap F1 cars old and new at the Red Bull Ring

This weekend the Formula One circus heads to Spielberg. No, not the Hollywood director, but the town in Austria that's home to the Österreichring. Subsequently known as the A1-Ring, these days it's called the Red Bull Ring, which makes this weekend's revived Austrian Grand Prix something of a home race for the defending champion Red Bull Racing team. But long before that it was the home race of the sixteen F1 drivers that call Austria their home - not the least of them Gerhard Berger.
The only Austrian driver to have won a grand prix (ten of them, all told) but not a championship, Berger was a fixture of F1 racing in the 1980s and 90s, spending much of his career driving for Ferrari. He later ran Scuderia Toro Rosso for three seasons, during which time Sebastian Vettel won his first (and still the team's only) grand prix. So with the Austrian Grand Prix back on the calendar for this weekend, the two highly accomplished drivers headed to the Red Bull Ring for a little juxtaposition.
Gerhard rolled in with the Ferrari F1/87-88C in which he won the 1988 Italian Grand Prix at Monza (which was, incidentally, the same race that Vettel won for STR twenty years later under Ferrari power), and Seb in his championship-winning RB8. Then they switched off, giving the four-time world champion his first chance to drive a grand prix racer with three pedals. If you can't believe that, it's also (as far as we can tell) the first time, despite years of neck-and-neck competition and retention of some of the best drivers on the grid, that a Red Bull or Toro Rosso driver has driven a Ferrari F1 car, and vice versa. See how it went down in the video below.

First Ferrari LaFerrari hits the auction block

If you haven't laid down your $1.4 million to be one of 499 people to own the new Ferrari LaFerrari by now, then you're already too late. Fortunately, Ferrari's new hybrid supercar has just been listed by German auction site SEMCO Gmbh, meaning that you still have a shot at owning one, but it'll cost you - dearly.
With just 124 miles on the odometer, this particular LaFerrari is being listed at 2.38 million euros - more than $3.2 million USD. But hey, at least that includes the Value Added Tax, eh? If the seller manages to command that asking price, it would be an incredible return on investment every bit as fast as the car itself, which in case your mind needs refreshing, is very fast indeed. Top Speed? Try 217 miles per hour and a 0-60 time of under three seconds.

Haas pens partnership with Ferrari

Gene Haas is undertaking quite the initiative by starting his own Formula One team instead of simply buying an existing one. And he's making it even harder on himself by laudably insisting on quartering the operation at his home base in North Carolina. But to get onto the grid by 2016, he's going to need some help.
Fortunately that appears to be just what he's getting thanks to a new partnership with no less accomplished an outfit than Ferrari - which, despite not having won a championship since 2008, remains far and away the most successful team in the history of grand prix racing, with sixteen constructors' championships, fifteen drivers' titles and 221 grand prix victories to its name.
Haas Automation, the CNC machine manufacturer over which Gene Haas presides and which funds his various racing activities, has just signed a sponsorship deal with Scuderia Ferrari that has already seen the Haas logo appear on the F14 T that Fernando Alonso and Kimi Raikkonen drove in the British Grand Prix this past weekend. More than a sponsor, Haas Automation has become an official supplier to the Maranello squad, but is expected to lead to even closer cooperation that will help get the American F1 team up and running in time for the 2016 world championship.