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Race Recap: 2014 British F1 Grand Prix readjusts the balance of power

Qualifying for the British Formula One Grand Prix was just as much a surprise for fans as it was for teams. Certain team weather radar displays didn't accurately pinpoint storm systems over the track, and in the case of at least two teams, the lack of data was compounded by poor decision making. That's how both Ferraris and both Williams got kicked out of qualifying in Q3 - the drivers already on track took advantage of a dry spell between rains, but Ferrari and Williams waited too long to get back out, and by the time they did it had started raining again.
Rain-induced bewilderment hit the front of the field as well. When all appeared resolved in Q3 but the clock hadn't yet run down to zero, drivers including Lewis Hamilton and Daniel Ricciardo pulled into the pits thinking the day was done. However, a drying last sector of the Silverstone circuit meant the drivers still out could suddenly improve their times by four seconds in just that sector. When the bell tolled, those who fought to the last were those who lined up first: Nico Rosberg in the first Mercedes AMG Petronas, Sebastian Vettel in the first Infiniti Red Bull Racing, Jenson Button in the McLaren, Nico Hülkenberg in the first Force India and Kevin Magnussen in the second McLaren.
Hamilton had fallen all the way to sixth on the grid, a mortifying blow to his race and his championship challenge. He was followed by Sergio Perez in the second Force India, Ricciardo in the second Infiniti Red Bull Racing, Toro Rosso teammates Daniil Kvyat and Jean-Eric Vergne completing the top ten.

Why Italians are no longer buying supercars

Italy is the wound that continues to drain blood from the body financial of Italian supercar and sports car makers. The wound was opened by the country's various financial police who decided to get serious about superyacht-owning and supercar-driving tax cheats a few years ago, by noting their registrations and checking their incomes. When it was found that a rather high percentage of exotic toy owners had claimed a rather low annual income - certain business owners were found to be declaring less income than their employees - the owners began dumping their cars and prospective buyers declined to buy.
Car and Driver has a piece on how the initiative is hitting the home market the hardest. Lamborghini sold 1,302 cars worldwide in 2010, 1,602 cars in 2011 and 2,083 cars in 2012 - an excellent surge in just two years. In Italy, however, it's all about the ebb: in 2010, the year that Italian police began scouring harbors, Lamborghini sold 96 cars in Italy, the next year it sold 72, last year it sold just 60. The declines for Maserati and Ferrari are even more pronounced.
Head over to CD for the full story and the numbers. What might be most incredible isn't the cause and effect, but where the blame is being placed. A year ago the chairman of Italy's Federauto accused the government of "terrorizing potential clients," this year Luca di Montezemolo says what's happening has created "a hostile environment for ­luxury goods." Life at the top, it ain't easy.

LaFerrari XX prototype pushed so hard that its suspension fails

Ferrari has a real challenge on its hands. It made the new LaFerrari hybrid hypercar so extreme already that it left little room to crank it up to 11 and turn it into an XX development prototype like it did with the Enzo and the 599 before it. So it's really going to have to push the envelop to take it that extra step.
That's what it has apparently set out to do with this LaFerrari prototype at Monza, where the Prancing Horse marque was spotted preparing the upcoming LaFerrari XX. In fact, testers ran the prototype so hard that they broke the car's right rear suspension. Which is bound to happen, we guess, when you try to find that extra bit of performance in a vehicle that's already one of the most capable ever devised, but only goes to show how much deeper Ferrari will have to dig to find that even sharper edge.
Either that or Ferrari's working on some sort of four-wheel steering system with automatic camber adjustment... See for yourself in the video below.