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Weekly Recap: Ferrari pens a provocative F1 car of the future

Scuderia Ferrari unveiled its vision of the future for Formula One this week, revealing sketches of a sleek, muscular racecar. Called the Concept F1, Ferrari is showcasing the design to start a conversation about the next generation of Formula One cars and spur interest in the sport, which has been maligned for its unattractive racecars in recent years. The Concept F1 was penned by the company's in-house studio, Centro Stile Ferrari, with input from its aerodynamics department. Though the sketches look futuristic, the company says the design could be executed without changing F1 regulations. From its beginning, Ferrari's racecars have had both form and function, winning on the track and turning heads with everything from the 250 Testa Rossa, 330 P3, Michael Schumacher's single-seaters from the early 2000s and many others. That lineage led the Scuderia's leaders to survey the paddock, wring their hands and come up with the Concept F1. As Ferrari said on its website: "Our challenge was to create something that was – to put it short – better looking." It's a philosophy that was implemented for this season's car, the SF15-T. While not groundbreaking in appearance, Ferrari cleaned up the design, particularly up front, and the racecar now has a more attractive nose that delivers better aerodynamics. It's more of the same in back, where a tighter design creates more downforce. "This year's car is certainly an awful lot better looking than last year's car," Ferrari technical director James Allison said in a video on the Scuderia's website. The updates come as Ferrari, and all F1 teams, get a better handle on the extensive 2014 rule changes that brought back turbocharged engines and altered the aerodynamic regulations for the series. Less dramatic changes also are going into effect this year. Ferrari, which is coming off a disappointing fourth-place finish in the World Championship, is obviously looking to the future. Appearances have always mattered for the red cars. We'll see if they bring the Scuderia success this season and beyond. Other News and Notes Next-generation Chrysler Town & Country spied Fiat Chrysler Automobiles is hard at work on the next-gen Town & Country minivan, and our spy shooters have captured heavily covered prototypes during testing on the road. We can't tell anything about the exterior design, though we see glimpses of an instrument panel (which looks vaguely Dodge Charger-esque) and infotainment screen inside.

Vettel wins in Hungary as Ferrari finishes first and second

Sebastian Vettel won a tense Hungarian Grand Prix on Sunday in a Ferrari one-two that stretched his championship lead to 14 points after Mercedes rival Lewis Hamilton sportingly surrendered third place to his team mate. The German, savoring his fourth win of the season and 46th of his Formula One career, took the chequered flag 0.9 seconds ahead of team mate Kimi Raikkonen. The Finn had looked faster than Vettel for most of the afternoon. "I'm over the moon, that was a really difficult race," said the winner, who had to wrestle with a skewed steering wheel on a sweltering afternoon at the Hungaroring and had no room for error. Hamilton finished fourth after slowing down on the last lap and allowing Finnish team mate Valtteri Bottas to go past, despite the loss of vital points to the Briton's championship challenge. Bottas had let Hamilton through on the 45th of the 70 laps, on the assurance that his team mate would hand back the place if he could not overtake the Ferraris, and the triple champion duly kept his word. "Really thanks to Lewis for keeping the promise in the end and letting me by," said Bottas. "I don't think every team mate would have swapped back." Hamilton, whose radio was malfunctioning for some of the race and would have had more of a chance had he got past Bottas earlier, said he had done what he had to do. "It's tough in the championship but I'm a man of my word," he said. "I did say that if I can't overtake them I would let him back through." On a circuit where overtaking is notoriously hard, the top five all finished in their starting order with Max Verstappen fifth for Red Bull. The Dutch teenager was handed a 10-second stop and go penalty for colliding with his Australian team mate Daniel Ricciardo on the opening lap. The impact ended Ricciardo's race, with the car stranded on the track and fluid leaking from the broken radiator, and brought out the safety car. "It's not on. It was amateur to say the least. It's not like he was trying to pass – there was no room to pass," said an angry Ricciardo. "I don't think he likes it when a team mate gets in front. You've got the whole race to try and repair the mistake but the pass was never on. It wasn't even a pass, it was a very poor mistake." Fernando Alonso, who celebrated his 36th birthday on Saturday, gave struggling McLaren their best finish of the season so far by taking sixth place and also setting the fastest lap of the race.

Lamborghini caps 2020 production at 8,000 to preserve cachet, resale values

Lamborghini chairman and CEO Stefano Domenicali told Car Advice that the Sant'Agata Bolognese automaker will cap production at 8,000 cars in 2020. Even though the cap doesn't take effect for a year, it has caught us by surprise — we didn't realize just how well Lamborghini is doing. In 2010, Lamborghini sold 1,302 cars worldwide, while its rival in Modena sold 6,461 units. Last year, Lamborghini broke all of its records on the way to a 51 percent sales increase and 5,750 cars delivered. The cap maintains two post-sale hallmarks required to fuel Lamborghini's new-car sales: exclusivity and resale values. Ferrari has led the way with public declarations of voluntary caps to maintain brand cachet, and Lamborghini's happy to shadow that leader. Domenicali, an ex-Ferrari man, didn't miss an opportunity to put the running bull's nose ahead of the prancing horse's in his comments, though. He told the Australian publication, "I can also say that for us, Ferrari has always been a reference ... as well as others in the super sports car segment, but we have already achieved higher residual values for our cars, especially with some of our older models." The boss marked out half the 2020 allotment for the Urus, two-thirds of the remainder for the Huracan, and the rest for the Aventador. We expect any 2020 cap to apply only to 2020, though. If Lamborghini can hustle a 40 percent increase in deliveries this year — 2,300 more units, and that's not outside the realm of possibility since this is the first full year of Urus sales — then in 2019 the carmaker will exceed the 2020 cap by 50 units. In such case, shrinking supply next year would help sustain the lather of acolytes, as well as copy another page from Ferrari's handbook. In 2013, then-Ferrari CEO Luca Montezemolo held production to under 7,000 units, after building 7,318 cars in 2012. In 2014, then-Ferrari CEO Sergio Marchionne said he'd stick to the "willful and intended" 7,000-unit cap. But when Ferrari announces its 2018 results soon, we expect uncapped shipments to exceed 9,000 units. Other upward pressures on Lamborghini's sales would be the success of the Huracan GT3 EVO, which won the GTD class in the weekend's Rolex 24 at Daytona, a year after the Huracan GT3 won in 2018. Lamborghini Squadra Corse has built more than 200 customer racers, and no one would rule out a few more orders phoned in on Monday.