GP: Monaco Race Day!

Looks like it's my favourite driver winning my favourite GP for his 5th win out of 6! This is of course good news. We all thought that Kimi was going to take pole with his KERS from the line, but far from it! Barrichello actually overtook him for second place. These would be the finishing places for these 3, with Kimi's team mate behind in 4th. Lewis Hamilton was a no-show again on his favourite track, getting lapped again by Button. I know he started from last place, but really he should have made more impact upon the drivers at the rear if he really is as good as he thinks he is.

There is very little else which I can say about this unusually dull Monaco GP. We had the odd shuffle about with pitting etc. but nothing really troubled Button who had a comfortable, solid win. One of the most entertaining parts of the race in fact was when Button parked in the wrong place and had to go on a little jog up to the podium. To top the event off Eddie Jordan managed to say 'b***ocking' on live TV.

F1: Monaco Qualifying

This is probably my favourite race, and I'm really looking forward to it tomorrow! Button did it again after a slightly poor show during Q1 and Q2, he had been struggling in the practises and this is known to be one of his poorer tracks. In Q3 he really was the last person I expected to get pole, but he pulls it out of the hat again which an excellent lap.

This will give him a great advantage tomorrow, how long he'll stay out in front is debatable with Kimi right behind him with the KERS system. Looks like Ferrari are starting to make an impact on the times, and it was a great lap to get second. Massa made 5th despite crashing in Q1. Barrichello made third and Vettel is right on his tail in 4th. Rosberg got 6th followed by Heikki and Webber. This is a bit of a surprise to me, as I have long expected a Webber victory.

The shock of the race was Lewis Hamilton binning it in Q1, to start 16th on his favourite track and one which many expected and predicted him to win. He man enough to admit it was his mistake for a rare change, so that's fair enough. He'll have little or no chance of the win now on this tight track now, but you never know, rain could mean just a few cars finish so points could be had. The cars were sliding all over the place without any dampness at all, so anything could happen.

Worth a mentiona s always is that the two Toyota's are rock bottom. The cars just didn't seem up to the job of Monaco, ahving said that it looked like Trulli was blocked, but little can be done about that now, so that is perhaps the end of any chances of points for them tomorrow.

The final scores from Setanta are shown below:

VW Scirocco R: Spy Shots.

On Auto express there are some shots of the Scirocco R about to make it's debut at the Nurburgring. And it looks, well, disappointingly similar if you ask me. Okay; it's lower, it's got 19" alloys and a bodykit, but the bodykit just looks somewhat 'stuck on' in my opinion. It just doesn't grab you, unlike the original Studie R photo's which came out earlier this year, that looked fantastic and unmistakeable, this just looks like a 19 year old has been let loose on it.

Don't get me wrong I'd take it over the standard version (that's the sort of guy I am), I'd just prefer a little more effort VW! That being said this is not the final version, and you can see it still seems to have a small amount of concealing tape on it, we shall see when the real photo's come out. And maybe the engine will do the talking for it, it should be producing around 260bhp (the same engine which will be in the Golf R20), and sprint to 60 in just 6 seconds. This sounds mighty good to me, even though I am still slightly upset by the discontinuation of the R32. Okay, turbos can produce the same power as the 3.2 used to create with a 2.0T, but hang on... Why not just KEEP the 3.2 engine and crack a turbo (or two) onto that? 400bhp anyone? Maybe when I own a car company... Until then reducing engine size seems all the rage in this eco-crazed modern world.

Jun Hyper Lemon Skyline R34

Jun is famous for modifying cars, and this has to be one of the best Skylines ever built. It has a completely rebuilt engine by Jun, producing 1200+Bhp, in fact it broke the dyno when they tried to test it.

It will run a quarter mile in 9.20. Noting that a Veyron will do it in 10.2, SSC Ultimate Aero TT will do it in 9.9, Cerbera Speed 12 9.9, nothing short of a funnycar or similar will take this on a straight, and very few road legal cars would be able to touch it, if any.

This very car was on sale on eBay no less, and finished a few days ago, so your chance was missed. It went for 50k in the end, which is an absolute bargain for a car like this, must have had well over 200k spent on it.

Pity noone made me an offer of 50k for my Yaris :(

Fireballed 500bhp Mini!

Yes that is correct 500+Bhp Mini 'Widow' by "Fireballed Tim Racing", a California tuner. In order to achieve this:

"he fitted a higher flowing head, intake manifold and fuel system, to create a system to install a Garrett GT3071R turbocharger, while a 75mm throttle body was installed for better airflow, and a water-to-air intercooler to help reduce the charge temperatures.

But because the ‘Widow’ would likely see a lot of action – or abuse – on the drag strip, Tim and his team installed a 75bhp shot of nitrous oxide. Which means this Mini monster pushes out more BHP than a BMW M5 and falls just shy of a Lamborghini Gallardo’s 560bhp."

That is literally insane getting that much power from a 1.6 engine, I am a big fan of this sort of thing, people who squeeze the absolute maximum out of their cars. Such as if you have a Viper with an 8.3 litre engine, I can't help but think "sure, that's a lot of power, but what if we whacked a couple of turbos on there? A company has done this, I may just write a blog about it some day infact..."

Anyway back to the point...

So we have 500Bhp through the FRONT WHEELS of a VERY LIGHT CAR. And we thought a Corsa VXR had some Torque steer. Fancy differential or not, I feel that this will be good for just one thing, the drag strip as stated above. Boy racers (me included) would literally kill for this sleeper, the power to weoght must be amazing, they do not quote specs, but according to my calculations...

Power to Weight:	462 bhp/ton
0-60:	4.2
0-100:	7.9
60-100:	3.7
1/4 Mile ET:	12.04
1/4 Mile Terminal:	125
Dragstrip 1/4 Mile ET:	11.74
Dragstrip 1/4 Mile Terminal:	127

To put that in perpective; a Ferrari F430 will do 60 in 4 seconds, however will take 10 seconds to 100, and the quater mile time would be half a second slower than the mini. :) :) :)

New Vauxhall Astra revealed.

So here's the new Astra. It doesn't look too bad, although I'm not a huge fan. Having said that with the current range of Astras the base spec one does look awful, yet the Sprothatch models and especially the VXR look very nice indeed. This new model definately is inkeeping with the current Vauxhall range, so I look forward to some of the sporty ones coming out, but at the moment I'd say I prefer the current models so far.

They are going to have a 1.4 Turbo engine to replace the 1.8, pushing out 138Bhp, with 170ft.lbs of Torque, which sounds respectable, but in all honesty the only one I'd be interested in is the VXR (not out until ~2011), we should be looking at well over 200Bhp, with some sort of 2.0 Twin Turbo, which always sounds attractive. No doubt this will suffer with just as much Torque steer as ever present in the VXR range, unless we see some sort of Focus RS style differential, or even a 4WD system.

Come on though, this is Vauxhall, that isn't going to happen, and this will do the trick in the all important boy racer market, where Max Power speficiations are everything.

F1: Oldest and most successful team Ferrari will walk away in 2010 if the rules are not revised.

Ferrari have claimed that they will not register their cars for 2010 if a budget cap comes into play.

"No F1 in 2010 if the rules do not change. Ferrari confirms its opposition to the new rules imposed by FIA and does not intend to register cars for the 2010 F1 world championship," said a team statement following a meeting at their Maranello headquarters.

This doesn't come as a huge surprise, they cannot do well even with all the money in the world, and Ferrari have never taken losing well. Many of the major manufactures will be thinking that the budget cap is a poor idea too, whereas the minor teams which are just starting out will think it's a godsend.

I think it would be a nice idea to have a budget cap, but it really will only work if every team agrees to do it, if not they may as well scrap it. Like many people have said why not just have two different races, as it will be a two tier race if not.

Personally I think they risk ruining the sport again if not everyone cooperates, why fix something which isn't broken. Last season was fantastic, and this season is shaping up very nicely as well, so why not just leave it alone?

What is everyone's opinion on this difficult matter (if anyone is reading this :P)?