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European commission investigating F1 finances and anti-competitive accusations

The Kingdom of Formula One reminds us of renaissance Florence - ruled by a singular chieftan behind a mask of representative involvement, rife with spectacularly convoluted machinations, awash in innovations that help define our world and far-flung, vindictive misery. If we found out Bernie Ecclestone's real last name was de Medici, well, it would explain a lot. Now after a bit of back-and-forth, the European Commission (EC) has taken aim at the kingdom, investigating whether F1 is anti-competitive and if the FIA has abused its antitrust agreement. The reason for EC scrutiny is that a British member of the European Parliament who represents an area in southwest England, Anneliese Dodds, has fielded complaints from engineering companies in her constituency that recent moves in F1 have put them out of business. She wrote to the EC to question why the FIA now has a stake in F1 when it signed an agreement in 2001 to be solely a governing body and abdicate any stakeholding in the sport. She also questioned the F1 Strategy Group, a group of the six top teams in F1 that makes decisions about the direction of the sport; she says that the Strategy Group not only appears to be a case of the F1 shirking its rule-making duty, it has resulted in unfair treatment of the small teams that aren't in the group. Dodds has a bit of a point. In 2001, the FIA sold F1's commercial rights to Ecclestone for 100 years for a sum of $313.7 million. That was done to placate European regulators who insisted that "the role of FIA will be limited to that of a sports regulator, with no commercial conflicts of interest." Although the rights are ultimately owned by the FIA and bring in a $10M fee every year from Formula One, those rights bring in $1.6 billion each year to Formula One Management (FOM), the company that owns F1. When Ecclestone was trying to get the new Concorde Agreement signed in 2013 that governs the running of the sport, the FIA wouldn't sign, saying it wanted F1 to share a larger slice of its revenue – the FIA has been losing money for years, see. To the get the FIA to sign, Ecclestone sold it a one-percent stake in F1 for $460,000 and gave the FIA a $5M signing 'bonus;' whenever F1 has its IPO, that stake is estimated to be worth about $120 million - not a bad return. Yet, according to the aforementioned 2001 agreement, the FIA can't have that equity stake.

Lotus announces Exige V6 Cup racer

The Lotus Exige is once of the most focused race cars that you can purchase on the market today, but for those individuals who desire to track the mid-engined racer, Lotus has released its latest no-frills, all-go racecar: the Exige V6 Cup.
The Exige Cup features a supercharged 3.5-liter V6 making 346 horsepower, enabling the 2,380-pound race car to get from zero to 62 mph in just 3.8 seconds. Power is put to the road with the help of Lotus Dynamic Performance Management, which allows for Touring, Sport and Race settings for the engine.
The Exige V6 Cup also features revised aerodynamics in the front fascia and rear diffuser, and it rides on a fully adjustable suspension that reaches the road with special wheels wrapped in Pirelli P-Zero Trofeo tires.

Tesla Model S Easter egg turns car into submarine

When thinking about Elon Musk, the first thing that comes to mind may not be his sense of humor. However, the Tesla boss is embedding a pretty funny Easter egg in the company's cars that references a part of his own collection. Musk famously purchased the Lotus Esprit submarine from the James Bond film The Spy Who Loved Me for about $967,000 in 2013. At one point, he even intended to install a Tesla powertrain and make it fully transformable. From anyone else that plan would sound like pure fantasy, but Musk has the money and the means to make it happen, if he wants. Now, every Tesla Model S driver gets to share in just a little of that very cool ownership experience. A person on YouTube filmed how to access the Easter egg, and it's extremely easy. Just hold down the T on the infotainment screen for a few seconds, enter the appropriate code 007 and check the suspension settings page. Instead of seeing a Model S, Bond's submersible Esprit now appears. As another cool touch, users can set the vehicle's depth in leagues, and the options max out at 20,000. This is almost certainly a subtle reference to the classic story 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. Maybe someday Musk can get the Lotus' conversion complete, and we can see it working for real. Until then, this a neat way to show the unique car off. Related Video: