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Kimi Raikkonen fastest in first Belgian Grand Prix practice

SPA-FRANCORCHAMPS, Belgium — Ferrari's Kimi Raikkonen lapped fastest in first practice for the Belgian Grand Prix on Friday but Mercedes, and title contender Lewis Hamilton, still looked every bit the team to beat. A four-time winner at Spa, and with a contract extension for 2018 announced earlier in the week, Raikkonen lapped the longest track on the calendar with a best time of 1 minute 45.502 seconds. The 37-year-old Finn's time was set on the quickest ultra-soft tires, however, while Hamilton — preparing for his 200th race start — was second-fastest and only 0.053 slower on the soft compound. Hamilton was 0.092 faster than Ferrari's world championship leader Sebastian Vettel, with the German third on the timesheets and also setting his time on the quickest but least durable tire. Vettel leads Hamilton by 14 points with nine races remaining. Red Bull's Dutch teenager Max Verstappen, Belgian-born and attracting a huge traveling support of orange-capped fans, was fourth fastest with Australian team mate Daniel Ricciardo fifth. Hamilton's teammate Valtteri Bottas, who bumped into the tire barrier after going off across the gravel and damaged his front wing, was sixth fastest. The session was halted after 15 minutes when Brazilian Felipe Massa, who missed the previous race in Hungary after feeling dizzy in practice, crashed heavily into the tire barrier at turn seven out of Les Combes. He was taken to the medical center for checks, before returning to the pitlane, with his team facing a long job rebuilding the car. The session resumed after a 10 minute stoppage. Williams said the chassis would have to be changed and the team still hoped to get the car back out on track for some of the day's second session, even if that looked like being optimistic. Fernando Alonso suffered a lack of power in his McLaren, but still ended up 13th fastest. Belgian team mate Stoffel Vandoorne, who will start his home race last on Sunday thanks to a 35 place penalty due to a power unit change, was 10th. Reporting by Alan BaldwinRelated Video: Image Credit: Reuters Motorsports Ferrari McLaren Mercedes-Benz F1 Lewis Hamilton Sebastian Vettel Kimi Raikkonen Max Verstappen Valtteri Bottas belgian grand prix

Mercedes-AMG gears up for 2016 DTM with new C63 Coupe

Mercedes was once a force to be reckoned with in DTM. The Silver Star marque won six drivers' championships and nine constructors' titles since the modern Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters series rebooted in 2000. But though it's currently leading the standings, the last time it won the championship was in 2010. Audi and BMW have traded bragging rights each year since. What you see here, then, is the vehicle by which Benz hopes to recapture its former glory in the German tin-top racing series. Presented alongside the Edition 1 at the Frankfurt Motor Show, the new touring car is based – stylistically at least – on the new C63 AMG Coupe, but is designed specifically for the race track. Underneath the largely carbon-fiber bodywork sits a 4.0-liter V8 engine driving 483 horsepower and 369 pound-feet of torque through a six-speed sequential gearbox to the rear wheels. It's suspended by pushrod-actuated by double wishbones and features a mechanical diff (but no traction control) and carbon-ceramic brakes (but no ABS). In short, the new C63 is all business. And it looks about ready to take on Germany's most famous racing circuits and those of some of its neighbors – from Hockenheim, the Nurburgring, and the EuroSpeedway Lausitz to Zandvoort, the Red Bull Ring, and the Moscow Raceway. Audi and BMW had better watch their mirrors. Mercedes-AMG DTM Team present 2016 race car - Looking ahead to the 2016 season: How the new DTM car fielded by the Mercedes-AMG DTM Team will look - Inspired by the DTM: AMG launch Edition 1 Mercedes-AMG C 63 Coupe - Five questions to Head of Mercedes-AMG DTM Ulrich Fritz - Overview: How Mercedes-Benz DTM vehicles have evolved - Ulrich Fritz: "Our aim with this vehicle is, of course, to continue the Mercedes-Benz success story in the DTM." The 2015 DTM season reaches its climax in September. But even before the final three race weekends of the year at Oschersleben, the Nurburgring and Hockenheim, the Mercedes-AMG DTM Team are providing an insight into what lies ahead for the race series, revealing the new car that they will enter for the 2016 campaign. Design adaptations to the 2016 Mercedes-AMG C 63 DTM first began last year. The dynamic-looking headlights and the twin blade grille typical of the AMG are two of the car's most striking features. The first tests with the new vehicle will take place during the winter as part of preparations for the 2016 season.

Ecclestone wonders if F1's upcoming turbo V6s should get augmented sound [w/videos]

While every team on the Formula One grid is worried about making a good showing in this year's championship at the same time as they develop a brand-new car for next year's championship, Bernie Ecclestone and F1 circuit promoters have a different concern: how next year's cars will sound. The current cars use 2.4-liter, naturally-aspirated V8s that can reach 18,000 revolutions per minute and employ dual exhaust, next year's engine formula calls for 1.4-liter turbocharged V6s that are capped at 15,000 rpm and are constrained to a single exhaust outlet. Ecclestone and promoters like Ron Walker believe the new engines sound like lawnmowers and that the less thrilling audio will keep people from coming to races. If Walker's Australian Grand Prix really is shelling out almost $57 million to hold the race, every ticket counts. As a fix, according to a report in Autoweek, Ecclestone "suggests that the only way to guarantee [a good sound] may be to artificially adjust the tone of the V6s."
However, neither the manufacturers nor the governing body of F1, the FIA, think there will be a problem. Ecclestone fears that if the manufacturers "don't get it right" they'll simply leave the sport, but the only three carmakers and engine builders left next year, Renault (its 2014 "power unit" is pictured), Mercedes-Benz and Ferrari are so embedded that it would stretch belief to think they'd leave the table over an audio hiccup - if said hiccup even occurs. And frankly, these issues always precede changes to engine formulas, as they did when the formula switched from V10 to V8; fans, though, are probably less focused on the engines and more on the mandated standardization of the sport and the spec-series overtones that have come with it.
No one knows yet what next year's engines will sound like, but we've assembled a few videos below to help us all start guessing. The first is an engine check on an Eighties-era John Player Special Renault with a 1.5-liter V6 turbo, after that is Ayrton Senna qualifying in 1986 in the Lotus 98T that also had a 1.5-liter V6 turbo, then you'll find a short with a manufactured range of potential V6 engine notes, and then the sound of turbocharged V6 Indycars testing last year at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Any, or none of them, could be Formula One's future.