2007 Spider 4.3l Black on 2040-cars

Auto blog

Ferrari's Charles Leclerc takes third straight pole at Singapore GP

SINGAPORE — Ferrari driver Charles Leclerc claimed a third straight Formula One pole position on Saturday after outpacing championship leader Lewis Hamilton in qualifying for the Singapore Grand Prix. Leclerc clocked a lap of 1 minute, 36.217 seconds at the 5-kilometer (3.1-mile) Marina Bay street circuit, beating Hamilton by 0.191 seconds. Leclerc's teammate Sebastian Vettel was third. "If you look at the lap, it was a good lap, but there were some moments that I lost control," Leclerc said. "We brought some new bits that worked properly, which was good to see. I had a very tough Friday and didn't feel comfortable in the car, but we worked hard and it paid off." Leclerc has won the previous two races. After his first-ever F1 victory in Spa at the Belgian GP, the 21-year-old Leclerc became the first Ferrari driver to win the Italian GP since Fernando Alonso in 2010. Hamilton holds a 63-point lead over Mercedes teammate Valtteri Bottas with seven races remaining. "I don't know where Ferrari picked up their pace, it's not usually one of their circuits," Hamilton said. "But they did a great job, Charles did some great laps. Hopefully we can be in the mix with them tomorrow. I think we can be aggressive." While Hamilton already has eight wins this season, his last came at the Hungarian GP in early August. Pole position in Singapore is crucial as its one of the hardest tracks for overtaking in F1. The driver leading the field has won eight times in the past 11 years. Hamilton has won in Singapore the past two years. Another victory in Sunday's night race would move the Briton a step closer to his third straight championship and sixth overall, one shy of Michael Schumacher's record of seven titles. Vettel, whose contract ends in 2020, is on a 13-month winless streak. His last victory was at the 2018 Belgian Grand Prix. Vettel and Hamilton are the only two drivers on the grid with victories at Singapore — with four wins each. Red Bull's Max Verstappen was fourth, almost four-tenths behind Vettel. Bottas was fifth for Mercedes ahead of Red Bull's Alex Albon. Carlos Sainz Jr. took seventh place for McLaren in front of the Renault of Daniel Ricciardo. Nico Hulkenberg was ninth in the second Renault with McLaren's Lando Norris rounding out the top 10. Motorsports Ferrari Lewis Hamilton Sebastian Vettel singapore grand prix charles leclerc

How this Ferrari 250 GTE became Rome's most famous police car

We're used to seeing fancy cars gifted to or bought by certain international police forces today, but the story of this 1962 Ferrari 250 GTE goes well beyond a gift. Because Rome's anti-organized-crime unit, Squadra Mobile, was doing a terrific job in the early '60s, the Italian president asked what they wanted as a token of appreciation. The answer, meant as a joke, was "A Ferrari." The president, in all seriousness, got them two.
One was almost immediately destroyed during testing, the other remains in the care of Alberto Capelli today, whose father began attending military and government auctions just after World War II. Petrolicious visited Capelli to hear the 51-year-old tale of the most precious cop car you're going to see for a while, and it involves outlaws, a French gangster in a Citroën, a policeman who was offered a spot on the Ferrari factory team by Enzo himself, and more. It's a fantastic yarn, and you can watch the whole story below.

2022 Villa d'Este Concours d'Elegance Mega Gallery | The show in pictures

COMO, Italy — Held annually, the Villa d'Este Concours d'Elegance is, in many ways, Europe's version of the Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance. It takes place in a beautiful location, and it brings together an impressive selection of rare and valuable cars. It's a real treat for the eyes, the ears, and, if you're into champagne, the palate. The 2022 edition of the show was no exception: About 50 cars were shipped to Lake Como from over a dozen countries, and it wasn't just the usual suspects. Sure, there were a lot of pre-war cars (including a couple of one-off models), but some of the icons that younger enthusiasts grew up with (like the Lamborghini Countach) were present as well. This year's event was split into eight categories: The Art Deco Era of Motor Car Design, The Supercharged Mercedes-Benz, How Grand Entrances Were Once Made, Eight Decades of Ferrari Represented in Eight Icons, "Win on Sunday, Sell on Monday," BMW's M Cars and Their Ancestors, Pioneers That Chased the Magic 300 KPH, And a design award for concept and prototypes. The jury gave the coveted "best of show" award to a 1937 Bugatti 57 S owned by Andrew Picker of Monaco, while the aforementioned classes were won by, respectively: The Bugatti 57 S, shown below, A 1936 Mercedes-Benz 540K Cabriolet, A 1956 Chrysler Boano Coupe Speciale, A 1966 Ferrari 356 P Berlinetta Speciale Tre Posti, A 1961 Porsche 356 B Carrera Abarth GTL, A 1972 BMW 3.0 CSL, A 1989 Porsche 959 Sport, And the Bugatti Bolide concept unveiled in 2020. Winning at Villa d'Este is a big deal: The cars are judged by a panel of highly experienced judges. No one gave me a scoring sheet, presumably out of fear that I'd award points to the late-model Fiat 600 lurking in the parking lot, but several cars that didn't win an award caught my eye. One is a 1934 Bugatti Type 59 Sports, a grand-prix racer that was once owned by King Leopold III of Belgium and that has never been restored — its patina is inimitable. Another is a 1961 BMW 700 RS. One of two built (the other is in the BMW collection), it's a tiny, ultra-light roadster related to the 700 and powered by a 697-cubic-centimeter air-cooled flat-twin tuned to develop 70 horsepower. It won several hill-climb events during the 1960s, and it's one of the rarest cars ever to wear a BMW roundel. Aston Martin's freshly-restored 1979 Bulldog concept was cool to see as well; check out the cassette player integrated into the headliner!