'11 458 Italia - Carbon - Leds - Afs - Scuderia Shields - Radar - Ipod - Custom! on 2040-cars

Auto blog

Ferrari threatening to fine journalists $69,000 for breaking LaFerrari embargo?

In automotive journalism, we deal with embargoes on a regular basis. For the uninitiated, these are agreements between publications like Autoblog and manufacturers. While news embargoes (where pubs are provided with information and images and agree to hold until a predetermined date) are fairly common, today, we're focusing on drive embargoes. These are what we generally end up signing when we attend a vehicle launch. Generally, these are in the media's best interest. As drive programs are spread out over a week or two with multiple different "waves" of media, drive embargoes put the biggest and smallest publications on level footing when it comes to publishing reviews.
According to a report from Autocar's Steve Sutcliffe, Ferrari has taken its drive embargo for the LaFerrari hypercar a bit too far. See, initial reviews from the few publications that attended the drive event for the hybrid-powered monster can hit the newsstand or internet on April 30. Originally, syndicated stories - those sold by freelancers or publications to other outlets - couldn't be published until May 12. These syndicated reviews are big money for larger magazines and, in the case of freelance journalists, are a primary source of revenue. Inexplicably, though, Ferrari has pushed the syndication embargo back to May 26, which is bad news for everyone involved (aside from Ferrari).
This could have been nothing more than an annoyance. The stories would still get sold (although it might be for a bit less coin, considering the initial reviews will be nearly a month old) and you'll still be bombarded by reviews of the LaFerrari not once, but twice, just as Ferrari planned.

Ferrari to offer 458 examples of new Speciale Spider

Talk about first-world, one-percenter problems: you want to get a new Ferrari, you've even settled on the 458, but you can't decide between the Spider and the Speciale. It's a tough call, we know. But your pain will be over soon, if the latest rumors are to be believed.
Those rumors have it that, at an exclusive preview event for select customers at Pebble Beach this past weekend, Ferrari showed off a new 458 variant that combines the best attributes of the 458 Spider (namely its folding hardtop) with those of the 458 Speciale (those being its 600-horsepower engine and other go-fast bits).
Succeeding the similarly exclusive, best-of-both-worlds, F430-based 16M Scuderia Spider, the new 458 Speciale Spider (or whatever it's ultimately called) is said to be limited to 458 examples worldwide, and is expected to be unveiled to the public at the Paris Motor Show this coming October.

F1 driver underestimates talent needed for wet-weather burnout

Whoops. That's a word nobody wants to hear in racing, and that's especially true in Formula 1, where the cars cost untold millions to design, develop, build and operate. In other words, just about any 'whoops' is an expensive 'whoops.'
Kamui Kobayashi, who made his F1 debut in 2009 driving for Toyota, has always been known as a bit of a wild card in the sport. He is notoriously difficult to pass, driving as he does with seemingly reckless abandon, and he's not afraid to get tangled up with the world's best drivers in the world's fastest race cars.
That brash attitude sometimes serves him well. Other times... well, not so much. See what happens with Kobayashi tries to show off in a Ferrari F1 car for fans on a wet track in Moscow in the twin videos below.