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'The best Lewis' Hamilton faces resurgent Ferrari in F1

SHANGHAI (Reuters) - Lewis Hamilton has raised his game but whether the Mercedes driver can deny Ferrari a second successive win of the season in China this weekend remains to be seen. On paper, the triple world champion is still the man to beat -- the most successful driver by far in Shanghai with four wins to date. "Lewis is the best Lewis that I've seen in the last four years, both on and off the track," said Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff after the Briton started on pole and finished second to Ferrari's Sebastian Vettel in the Australian season-opener. "He has become a pillar of this team and he proved that in Melbourne." But Vettel is leading the championship, the first time a non-Mercedes driver has done that since he took his fourth title with Red Bull in 2013, and once-dominant Mercedes have a fight on their hands. Mercedes, who have taken both the drivers and constructors' titles for the last three years, have won four of the last five races in China. As Melbourne showed, however, past form may count for little in a season of sweeping rule change. "If you think you are going to cruise to victory in the future, based on a track record of success, you'll be proven wrong very quickly," said Wolff. "Australia was a weekend full of lessons, now we go to China ready and excited for another battle." Ferrari have not started a season with consecutive wins since 2004 at the peak of the Michael Schumacher era, the Italian team taking 15 victories from 18 races that season. Vettel's win in Australia ended a victory drought for Ferrari stretching back to September 2015, and drew rare praise from company chairman Sergio Marchionne, but they must now prove they can be genuine contenders. "You really have to go step by step," said Vettel. "It's good to know that we have a great car but it's just the beginning: new regulations, new generations of cars so there will be a lot of progress." The cars this year are longer and wider, sporting fatter tires and more swept-back bodywork as part of a rules shake-up aimed at making them faster, more spectacular to watch and harder to drive. But overtaking has also become more difficult, with Australia raising concern about the lack of real moves. The long straights and wide sweeps of the Shanghai circuit saw 128 passes last year, more than at any other track, and should provide a more definitive verdict.

Ferrari looks to capitalize on brand name as it promises faster growth

MILAN — Strong sales of Ferrari's Portofino and 812 Superfast models enabled the Italian luxury carmaker to raise its outlook on Monday, with a new brand strategy promising even more growth. Ferrari's Milan-listed shares rose as much as 7.4% to an all-time high of 155.15 euros ($172.65) after it reported "solid" third quarter results and signaled a strong year ahead. The 'Cavallino Rampante,' or 'Prancing Horse,' launched a plan to enhance its brand through new apparel and accessory collections, entertainment offers, and luxury products and services for clients. They include an agreement with Italian fashion house Giorgio Armani and the opening of a restaurant with star chef Massimo Bottura in the group's hometown of Maranello in northern Italy. Ferrari expects the new brand initiative to represent around 10% of the group's profitability in the next seven to 10 years, in what Chief Executive Louis Camilleri described as an "ambitious but realistic target". "It is our intention to increase the size of the cake and our share of the cake," he told analysts in an earnings call, referring to the group's bid to expand revenues outside of selling cars. The new branding strategy builds on the group's aggressive roll-out of new premium models. Ferrari said core earnings would be around 1.27 billion euros ($1.41 billion) for the full year, topping a previous forecast of 1.2-1.25 billion euros ($1.34-1.39 billion). Camilleri said that this year Ferrari would match what it forecast last year for 2020. "I think it's rather premature for us to address 2020 at this time. But clearly, we do anticipate a strong year," he told analysts. The carmaker also increased its outlook on 2019 revenues to about 3.7 billion euros ($4.12 billion), from a previous forecast of more than 3.5 billion euros ($3.89 billion), and industrial free cashflow. "We expect the stock to rise but (the) focus will be on 2020," Morgan Stanley said in a note, adding that Ferrari's results were better than expected across the board. Ferrari will present its latest new model in Rome next week, taking the total to five this year, including the F90 Stradale, its first hybrid car in series-production. To support Ferrari's growth and profitability Camilleri's strategy plan from September last year promised to launch 15 new models between 2019 and 2022.

Watch a Ferrari LaFerrari drift, almost crash at the Nurburgring

It's a fair bet that we could have just written the words "LaFerrari," "Nurburgring," "drifting" and "videos," and drawn just as many eyeballs as a proper bit of text. But, our bosses say four-word posts aren't okay, so here we are. Today, we have a pair of videos featuring the topics mentioned above. The first video, shown up top, is what most of us think we could do, were we handed the keys to a wildly powerful hybrid Ferrari and given access to the world's most famous race track. We'd drift about and generally have an absolute riot The second video, shown below, is what would actually happen were we given a LaFerrari on the Nurburgring – we'd go too slow and scare the hell out of ourselves. Give both videos a look. This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings. Related Video: