2012 Mercedes Ml350 - Blk/blk - S01 Pkg - Lane Tracking Pkg - Carfax Guaranteed! on 2040-cars

Auto blog

2015 Russian Grand Prix was full of crashes and DNFs

Mercedes-AMG Petronas non-executive chairman Niki Lauda said of Lewis Hamilton's race-day domination this year, "The guy is driving like a god." Qualifying is another story, though – teammate Nico Rosberg taking pole proved that sometimes deities have to settle for second on the grid. Williams driver Valtteri Bottas surprised himself and his team with third place, half a second behind Hamilton but 0.05 sec ahead of the first Ferrari driven by Sebastian Vettel, while a mistake on Kimi Raikkonen's final flying lap left him in fifth, 0.4 sec behind Vettel. The Sahara Force India team had a good showing, with Nico Hulkenberg qualifying sixth just ahead of teammate Sergio Perez in seventh. It's the first time they've had both drivers in the top ten on the grid since the 2014 British Grand Prix. Romain Grosjean is leaving the stormy waters of Lotus at the end of the year for the unknown waters of Haas F1, but he made the shoestring operation look really good before Renault takes over by taking eighth place on the grid. Max Verstappen qualified well again with ninth in the Toro Rosso, ahead of the first Infiniti Red Bull Racing of Daniel Ricciardo in tenth. Red Bull driver Daniil Kvyat lined up eleventh for his home grand prix, certainly a disappointment after locking up fifth place on the grid last year in a Toro Rosso. When Pirelli brought soft and supersoft compounds to Sochi, the company said it hoped this year's race would be better than last year's. We're sure this first-lap mishap isn't what they meant. Rosberg and Hamilton dragged it down to Turn 1, with Rosberg getting the inside line. Hamilton had to go wide at Turn 2 as Rosberg fought to hold position, but they left a mess in their wake: Hulkenberg spun going into Turn 2 and stopped in the middle of the track, and Marcus Ericsson in the Sauber – who'd started 16th – collided with him. Both cars were out of the race immediately, and the Safety Car came in. The Safety Car returned to the pits on Lap 3 Rosberg led the field, but just two laps later the German complained of a sticking throttle pedal. Two laps later he had to retire, unable to drive the car properly. That put Hamilton at the front, and we've seen that race a bunch of times before. He built a double-digit lead and never lost it.

YouTube's Super Bowl commercial buzz list dominated by automakers [w/videos]

After Sunday's big game, YouTube will be the place to watch every commercial that you missed when you left your seat for an emergency guac refill or, as we say in Cleveland, took the Browns to the Super Bowl. That makes YouTube the nation's water cooler on Monday, and it's got some preliminary stats to share in the lead up to kickoff.
As you know, Super Bowl advertisers, particularly automakers, like to endlessly tease their big budget commercials in the weeks before the game, many times revealing them outright days in advance. Because of this, YouTube can tell us which commercials have been viewed the most so far, and their top five list is all automakers.
Kaley Cuoco appears to have been a good investment for Toyota, as her ad for the RAV4 has garnered the most YouTube views - six million and counting - among Super Bowl commercials so far. Second place goes to Mercedes-Benz, though not its actual Super Bowl commercial, but rather the teaser for it. You know, the one with Kate Upton and the car washing, which is up to 5.6 million views. Third place is Audi's Prom commercial (3.3M views), fourth goes to Volkswagen's slightly controversial Get In, Get Happy ad (3.3M views), and the fifth and final spot is bookended by the teaser video for Kaley Cuoco's commercial (3.2M views). You can watch all five in order below.

Mercedes GLC spotted nearly nude ahead of tomorrow's reveal

Mercedes is set to officially take the wraps off its new GLC-Class crossover tomorrow, but if you can't wait that long, here it is all but completely undisguised. The GLC, for those just joining us, is the replacement for the GLK, rounder and renamed to align more closely with the C-Class. It was previewed as a slant-roofed concept in Shanghai, but as you can see, it'll reach production with a more conventional greenhouse. Rooflines (and various show-car details) aside, the production GLC looks pretty close to the aforementioned Concept GLC Coupe. Certain elements on this pre-production unit still remain taped up to keep from our prying eyes – though the engineer driving it doesn't seem to mind. We can at least hope that rather ungainly looking chrome lower rear bumper element is just there to throw us off, or will look more convincing as part of a complete package. But we'll be finding out one way or another tomorrow... so watch this space. Related Video: