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1955 Belgian GP movie tells the story of Spa

With the Belgian Formula One Grand Prix happening this weekend, Shell reminded a few guests what the Spa-Francorchamps track and Belgian countryside were like in 1955. That year the petroleum company made a 30-minute movie about the grand prix - this is back when the track was called the Francorchamps National Circuit, near the town of Spa, and a list of its important corners didn't include a mention of Eau Rouge - where it was doing the same thing it still does today: working on fuels and lubricants via its technical partnership with Ferrari.
To create the mood, journalists were invited to a vintage cinema where they mingled with Ferrari F1 drivers Fernando Alonso and Felipe Massa and other extras in period fifties gear, and watched a screening of 1955 Belgian Grand Prix. You can scroll down for a screening of your own, as well as the press release, minus the petits-fours and pinups.

Marchionne holds Maranello talks amid Ferrari's struggles

Ferrari president Sergio Marchionne has been in Maranello this week holding key meetings with staff to work out what needs to be done to rescue its season. With the Formula 1 campaign approaching its halfway point, Ferrari is still without the victory that it has been targeting since the first race in Australia. And worse than that, it appears to have fallen behind in the development stakes against Mercedes and Red Bull – leaving it now facing a challenge to finish second in the constructors' standings. On the back of a deeply disappointing British Grand Prix, where the team struggled for pace all weekend, Marchionne has elected to spend the last few days in Maranello to try to get to the bottom of what has gone wrong. For although its early season progress was impacted by the tragedy surrounding technical director James Allison, whose wife died just after the Australian Grand Prix, progress more recently has not been good enough. While Mercedes has been pushing on with upgrades at each race to keep improving its speed, Ferrari is still struggling to understand why its car has such a sensitive set-up that allows it to be competitive only in a very narrow performance window. Rather than sitting back and simply hoping for answers, Marchionne has taken it upon himself to push things forward. Motorsport.com has learned that he has held a series of key meetings at Maranello with the chassis and aerodynamic departments – with a particular focus on speaking to those who report to department heads as well as their juniors. Marchionne is determined to find out whether or not there is a belief from the shop floor that more potential can be extracted from the SF16-H, and if the true state of progress of the car is as he has been led to believe by senior management. It is possible that Marchionne could take action after these meetings to tidy up internal structures – moving around those staff who he believes have not been exploited to their best, and moving aside those whom he believes have been holding things back. It could be this action plan that team principal Maurizio Arrivabene was referring to after Silverstone, when he said that the situation at Maranello was now getting more serious – and that the potential for big change was coming if things did not improve. "After Hungary we cannot fool around any more," said Arrivabene.

World Car of the Year finalists announced

To say the 2014 Geneva Motor Show was packed full of news is an understatement as big as the show's home at the Palexpo convention center. Despite everything that we were able to cover during this year's show, there's still more coming out of Switzerland, including the announcement of the finalists for the 2014 World Car of the Year Awards.
We reported on the original list of finalists over three weeks ago, and now, that initial list has been pared down to three finalists for each of the five awards. The finalists were announced at a press conference by frequent Autoblog contributor and co-chair of the awards, Matt Davis (above).
The finalists for the overall title of 2014 World Car of the Year are the Audi A3, the BMW 4 Series and the Mazda3. The World Luxury Car of the Year will be either the Bentley Flying Spur, the Mercedes-Benz S-Class or the Land Rover Range Rover Sport, while the Performance Car of the Year will be awarded to the Chevrolet Corvette Stingray, the Ferrari 458 Speciale or the Porsche 911 GT3 (which, um, yeah...).