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Race Recap: 2014 Australian Grand Prix quietly opens the new F1 era [spoilers]

The first chapter of the new Formula One era has been written with the conclusion of the Australian Grand Prix, and it included a rookie rush, some resurgent and some unsurprising performances, the sound of screeching tires and a couple of firsts.
Outside predictions as to the pace of the Mercedes AMG Petronas team were proved as soon as the Friday practice sessions, with Lewis Hamilton recovering from an engine sensor fault in the first session to top the second, followed by teammate Nico Rosberg. That didn't change come the start of qualifying, not even the rain slowing down the Silver Arrows, Hamilton taking pole as the last man across the line in Q3.
The surprises were in the order behind him, with new Infiniti Red Bull Racing man Daniel Ricciardo grabbing second spot just three-tenths of a second down on Hamilton. Ricciardo not only looked like he belonged at the front of the grid the entire weekend, but he seems to have reversed the Mark Webber jinx: four-time World Champion Sebastian Vettel had car issues and didn't get into Q3, having to settle for 13th on the grid.

Ferrari 458 Italia becomes most expensive prize ever on Price Is Right

In case you haven't been paying attention, it's "Big Money Week" on the long-running The Price Is Right televised game show. In a nutshell, it means that more than a million dollars in cash and prizes are up for grabs for those lucky enough to "come on down," play some games and correctly guess product retail prices.
Moments after opening the show Thursday, host Drew Carey broke the unexpected news. "Today you are going to see the single-most-expensive prize in the history of the daytime Price is Right," he boasted before the curtains were pulled back to review a brand-new Ferrari 458 Italia Spider.
To win the car, the contestant had to play "Three Strikes" - blindly pulling numbers out of a bag and putting them in the correct price sequence before grabbing three dreaded red strikes. As expected, your typical The Price Is Right contestant is about as familiar with today's retail Ferrari pricing as they are with fractional jet ownership. We won't spoil the fun of whether or not a lucky contestant gets to drive the $285,716 exotic home (and pay a midsize sedan's worth of taxes), but feel free to speed ahead to about the three-minute mark on the video below to watch the reveal.

Ferrari testing 458 successor in the snow?

It may not seem so long ago that Ferrari introduced the 458 Italia. But it's been on the market a solid 5 years since its launch in 2009, which makes it not only the oldest model in the company's lineup, but one of the oldest in its segment, the Lamborghini Huracan and McLaren 650S just having been launched in the past couple of months. So while a solitary Ferrari playing in the snow might otherwise seem like little more than an unlikely place for it to be, its chronology suggests the crew from Maranello could be up to something more.
The white 458 captured by our spy photographers in Northern Sweden appears to have something going on around its wheel arches. Aside from the panel gap that's taped up between the quarter panel and rear fender in front of the rear wheel arch, there appear to be some modifications around the front wheel arch. Just what they're for, we don't know, but their presence suggests something's up.
The test mule pictured here could be simply testing some new components, for whatever application, but if this is indeed a prototype for the 458's replacement, we'll probably start seeing more of these from here on in before the finished product comes around within the next couple of years - by which time the 458 will be a good seven years old, longer than the F430 or 360 Modena before it were on the market.