Smashed against a Wall Street

 I wonder if a picture of Leonardo DiCaprio will attract more clicks than Sylvia Krystel.

Although this post is more about the Lambo from "The Wolf of Wall Street" rather than the wolf himself:

Does that look silver to you?

It's white.

And a bit of a fixer-upper.

It's one of two nearly identical limited edition Lamborghini Countach 25th Anniversary Edition cars used in the film.  The only difference between them is that other one hasn't been wrecked.  The story is here.

The thing is, both cars are coming up for auction. One in Abu Dhabi, then the other one a fortnight later in New York.

Why not auction them together? - it'll make it more convenient for the new owner because I bet it is the same person.

And if it isn't, what is the future for the wrecked version?  It's going to take some buffing out and I wouldn't be surprised if the engine won't start - buying it could be a titanic mistake.

E By Gum

The FIA Formula e championship kicked off this morning in Beijing.

It was on ITV4 so I watched it.  If it hadn't been on a Freeview channel I wouldn't have been that fussed but I'm glad I did - I have high hopes for it.

 

For those of you who don't know about Formula e, read this excellent piece on the subject.

 

Actually, don't.  That was written ages ago before anyone knew what it would evolve into - you'd do better checking out their official website.

 

Formula e is the all-electric alternative to Formula 1 - and based on the first race, could be more exciting than Formula 1.  I was wary that using street circuits as they do and having same-spec cars would mean overtaking was going to be difficult but the fact that they have to control the power in order to conserve battery-charge did lead to some very entertaining overtaking.

 

Swapping cars half-way through the race because the batteries wouldn't last is a bit strange and I'm sure that will die out once battery technology improves.

 

We also have the new innovation of "Fan Boost" (or #FanBoost if you're into Twitter) whereby fans vote for their favourite drivers and the top three vote-receivers get a power boost that they can use once in the race - but more about that shortly.

 

So...let's meet the teams...

 

First the ITV4 team who will be presenting the Season to us - 85.7% of whom I had not heard of before.

 

Firstly, we have Jennie Gow (who doesn't seem to be any relation to BTCC boss Alan Gow) but who does seem to be knowledgeable (and genuinely excited) about motorsport and seemed to ask the right questions.  Jennie is the main presenter based in the studio with race engineer Kyle Wilson-Clarke and F3 Driver Jann Mardenborough.  It was quite refeshing and interesting to have a race engineer in there with a different take on things.  Jann seemed a bit nervous and a bit young:

In fact, he even looks younger than Leonardo diCaprio if that is possible.  I'm sure his confidence will build up as the series goes on.

 

Former F1 mechanic Marc Priestley joined roving reporter Nicki Shields provided trackside insight with Jack Nicholls and Dario Franchitti doing the commentary.  Dario Franchitti being the 14.3% of the team that I was familiar with.

 

Now the actual teams.  There are a few familiar names from motorsport in there: Virgin, Renault, Senna, Prost, Piquet and Andretti to name but six.  Ten teams in total, running cars that look like this: 

• British based Amlin Aguri is led by Japanese ex-Formula 1 driver Suzuki Aguri who also founded F1 team Super Aguri.
• Andretti Autosport is led by Michael Andretti (part of the American Andretti motorsport dynasty).
• Audi Sport ABT is the team behind Audi's DTM cars.
• China Racing - not to be confused with...
• Dragon Racing who are from California.
• E.Dams Renault are sponsored by a Dutch Cheese Manufacturer. (No they aren't)
• Mahindra Racing - from the Indian motoring concern responsible for some Jeep look-a-likes that got imported to the UK.
• Trulli GP led by ex F1 racer Jarno Trulli.
• Venturi Grand Prix a joint effort between Venturi an American car company who have experience in electric vehicles and Leonardo diCaprio (serious electric car advocate) who has experience in looking very young.  He wasn't seen once during the coverage - I hope he was actually there.

• Finally (for alphabetic reasons) we have Virgin Racing - Richard Branson has moved over from F1. 

In terms of drivers, Alain Prost has employed his son Nico:

That is actually a picture of Alain but with their helmets on, the likeness is uncanny.

Amlin Aguri have one of the two female drivers in the series, Katherine Legge who also happens to be a Brit.

Mahindra have the charismatic ex-F1 duo of Karun Chandhok and Bruno Senna.

 

 Jarno Trulli is driving his own car whilst giving his other seat up to Italian Michela Cerruti.

 The other Brit in the series is Sam Bird driving for Virgin.

We also have several other ex-F1 stars (or their sons) in there too.

 

I think the fan boost may be a waste of time though with most people voting for the team with the best PR (Mahindra) or for the ladies (women voting for women and men voting for people they fancy) or for the countries with the biggest populations for for their own (Brazil, USA)

 

As it happened Mahindra's Senna, Brazil's di Grassi & Katherine Legge got the fan boosts.

 

We never got to find out when the boosts were used in the race.  I reckon a better system would be to have the vote during the race to potentially nobble someone or to help someone challenging for the lead.

 

The race itself felt a lot shorter than most motorsport I watch - but that was quite good - all done and dusted within three hours of TV.  Some excitement, some overtaking, some crashes, and, most importantly, a very dramatic finish with Nico Prost, who has led from the start, about to be overtaken by Nick Heidfeld on the last corner so cutting across and taking him out in a spectacular crash and taking himself out in the process allowing di Grassi to take the win.

 

As is traditional in motorsport, both blamed the other.

 

Prost was wrong.

 

So will I be watching the next race on November 22nd?

 

By gum I will.

Bad Karma for Justin Bieber?

An embarassing story today from Caradvice.com.au
This is the latest in a series of problems that have hit Fisker over the last couple of months:
They are facing a fraud lawsuit over rights to stocks.
They've had a recall to prevent a potential battery-pack leak.
and the potential killer:
They've had to lay off staff to help sort out debt issues arising from a huge Government Department of the Environment loan.

Their problems were highlighted two weeks ago in this Autoguide article.

It would be a shame if time is, as a suspiciously un-named analyst suggests, running out for Fisker. The cars look good, and the idea of using a petrol (or diesel) engine to generate elctricity to power the car makes good environmental sense - the motor should never be over-revving or free-wheeling or doing anything too wasteful.

So why mention Justin Bieber?

Simply to get a few more hits to my Blog.

But he was given a Karma for his 18th birthday. Autoguide reported it thus. God that article made me want to throw up.

Particularly this line from his manager, Scooter (yes Scooter!) Brawn, "We wanted to make sure, since you love cars, that when you’re on the road you are always environmentally friendly,” said Braun, adding, “And we decided to get you a car that would make you stand out.”

Yuk! As if Bieber wasn't sickly enough as it is.

Fisker could end up with a reputation for making cars for children - their other famous owner is Leonardo DiCaprio who may be 73 years old but only looks about 12.

Let's just hope Fisker doesn't go down like The Titanic.