Nitto 3K race meeting at Bira this weekend

Nitto 3K action

The very relaxed Nitto 3K race meeting is this weekend at the Bira Circuit on Highway 36 (about half way between the Regents School and the Highway 331 fly-over). Various classes including the Retro class in which we will be competing. Many of the classes are open to road-going cars, and have many rather inexperienced drivers, but it gives them a place to start, and plenty of spectator action.

Come along on the Sunday. The races start about 10 a.m. and if you are walk round to the outside of the hairpin at the end of the straight, look for our D2/AA Insurance Brokers hospitality tent. You have to cheer for my immaculate white Securitas Mk1 Ford Escort (or be thrown out). You can also cheer on the EBC Brakes E30 BMW of Gavin Charlesworth who has assisted us with brake materials for the little Escort.

The races are generally very short 8-10 lappers, so there is plenty of action - and plenty of fun. The last Nitto 3K meeting reminded me of motor sport in the UK and Australia of many years ago. Run what you brung and everyone enjoyed themselves and helped each other. Such a refreshing attitude these days.

Petrol-electric Panamera

Hybrid Porsche pig

Porsche’s fat pig Panamera has surfaced as a petrol-electric hybrid, designed to woo the rich and famous who would like to be seen as pristine green, rather than profligates. It is more expensive than the other versions of the pregnant pig, so being green does become the province of the rich.

While the Panamera hybrid is the ‘cleanest’ Porsche, the most fuel-efficient Porsche goes to the Panamera Diesel, which sets a new economy benchmark of 6.5 L/100 km, or 6.3 L/100 km with the ‘green’ low rolling resistance Michelin tyres.

The hybrid Panamera does get to 100 km/h 0.8 seconds faster than the diesel version (6.0 vs 6.8 seconds) and has a 28 km/h higher top speed (270 vs 242 km/h), making it the world’s fastest production hybrid. However, where can you use this performance? And how much money does the diesel Panamera cost to get consumption figures down to 6.3 L/100 km? In Australia the diesel costs A$ 194,900 - you’ll never get the car to pay for itself in your lifetime. But if you really do want the hybrid, it costs another A$ 100,000 on top.

A closer comparison is with the V8-powered rear-drive Panamera S, which is still cheaper than the hybrid as well as 15 kW more powerful (294 kW), up to sixth-tenths quicker to 100 km/h (5.4 seconds) and 13 km/h faster top speed (283km/h).

However, the 4.8-liter V8 gulps petrol at 12.5 L/100 km and emits 134 g/km more CO2, discharging 293 g/km. And does anyone really care? If you can afford to have that much money sitting in your garage, fuel consumption figures mean nothing. And you can say ditto for CO2.

I more than get the feeling that many manufacturers make some cars, just because they “can’. The Bugatti Veyron is a fine example. Now you can add the hybrid Panamera to that list of pointless cars.

I am reminded of the prophetic words of Professor Max Born, the Nobel Prize winner, who said that space travel was a triumph of the intellect, but a tragic failure of reason, and added that intellect distinguishes between the possible and the impossible, whereas reason distinguishes between the sensible and senseless. The Panamera hybrid is a fine example of his observations.

What did we learn from the Monaco Grand Prix?

Well, we learned that the track is an anachronism with today’s Formula 1 cars, they really did have a smashing time. Two Mercedes, one Ferrari, one Renault, one Force India, one Toro Rosso, one Sauber and probably more, I gave up counting. The speeds and the narrowness of the track makes it inherently unsafe to continue racing there.

I don’t care how many floating hotel yachts they have in the harbor, or how many “celebrities” attend. It is no longer suitable for F1 racing and forget the glamour and glitz. We (the enthusiasts) want to see good racing and not fading rock stars. And we certainly don’t need footage of the BBC talking heads driving around in a Bentley.

The lucky winner was Sebastian (The Finger) Vettel who was gifted the winner’s position by the red flag (race suspended) coming out six laps from the end of the race.

The idiotic rules then allowed him to change tyres, grease and oil change and a rebuild if he wanted, and he then comfortably finished in front of Alonso (Ferrari) and Button (McLaren). The rule is stupid. Under a red flag, the cars should sit as in a parc ferme situation until the restart. It is a “race suspended”, not “finished” (sort of) and then another start.

The FIA are very good at having stupid rules, however. Unless you lap within 107 percent of the leader’s time, you are too slow to compete in that race. Fine. Everyone agrees with that, except they decided to over-rule that rule and let the dreadfully slow HRT cars run. If they can ignore a rule, then the rule should not be there in the first place. Make up your mind, FIA.

We also learned that Lewis Hamilton can be as petulant as Alonso used to be. Having been called to visit the stewards, he puts this down to racist bias, rather than anything he might have done on the track. It really is time that young man grew up, and his employers (McLaren) stopped making excuses for him. “The penalties were frustrating: it’s really tough to overtake around here, and you rarely get an opportunity to do so. I was racing my heart out and just wanted to put on a good show for everyone.” Our hearts bleed for you, young man.

Kamui Kobayashi (Sauber) put on his usual good showing, and was unlucky to lose 4th in the final dash to the flag. He is a great talent, and doesn’t hide behind the fact that he is Japanese.

Webber (Red Bull) continues to disappoint. Unable to make a good start, unable to pass, and will be unable to hold his seat at Red Bull.

The team managers need to look at themselves as well. McLaren, with countless decades of experience, chose to leave Hamilton’s qualifying lap till right at the end of Q3. That’s fine if everything stays ‘normal’ and the driver makes no errors, the track does not suddenly have oil on it, or another driver stuffs his car in the wall.

In those situations your driver has no chance of a pole lap. The answer is to set a ‘banker’ lap first, and then sit and wait. You don’t have to be Einstein.

And while looking at pit work, Red Bull’s fumbling with tyre blankets is almost unbelievable. They are no longer a ‘new’ team. They certainly compromised Webber’s race.

Canada next week, let us hope we get better racing than we did at Monaco, even without the trappings of royalty.

Green Engine of the Year award

Awards are big business, don’t forget it. Every week there’s some award somewhere for something. And most of them are quite fatuous, but you do get a plastic trophy to put on the mantelpiece and a team of judges enjoy a freebie weekend with plenty of champagne and caviar.

The most recent to cross my desk was the award for the Engine of the Year. This was voted upon by scads of motoring writers at some venue in Europe, and was the result of collective ignorance of things mechanical. The number of motoring writers I have met who actually know anything about engines, other than what they read in the press hand-out, I can count on the fingers of one hand. And sorry if that upsets some motor noters.

However, the big winner came from Fiat who won four plastic egg cups:
Engine of the year - Fiat TwinAir 875 cc 2-cyl (Fiat 500)
Best New Engine of the Year - Fiat TwinAir 875 cc 2-cyl (Fiat 500)
Green Engine of the Year - Fiat TwinAir 875 cc 2-cyl (Fiat 500)
And the Sub 1-liter - Fiat TwinAir 875 cc 2-cyl (Fiat 500)
This engine is another of the fuel misers to make the tree huggers happy, will be more expensive to manufacture and everyone would rather have a diesel.
For what it is worth, every child player won a prize, and here is the list:
Best Performance Engine - Ferrari 4.5-liter V8 (458 Italia)

1-liter to 1.4-liter - Volkswagen 1.4-liter TSI TwinCharger (Golf, Polo)
1.4-liter to 1.8-liter - BMW 1.6-liter turbo (Mini range only)
1.8-liter to 2-liter - BMW 2.0-liter twin-turbo diesel (123d, X1)
2-liter to 2.5-liter - Audi 2.5-liter turbo (TT RS)
2.5-liter to 3-liter - BMW 3.0-liter twin-turbo six-cylinder (1-Series, 3-Series, X3, X5, X6, Z4, 6-Series, 7-Series)
3-liter to 4-liter - BMW 4.0-liter V8 (M3)

Above 4-liter - Ferrari 4.5-liter V8 (458 Italia)
I’m sure you will now all run out and buy a Fiat 500 TwinAir, but you won’t get one with that ‘award winning’ engine in this country, or many other countries for that matter.

I hope Fiat boss Marchione likes the egg cup.

Romance is dead

It’s enough to put the brakes on any relationship - five percent of married men say they spent longer looking for a new car than they did while searching for a wife, according to a new survey.

More than one in ten males also told researchers they spent more time deciding what car they should buy than they did choosing names for their own children, or purchasing a new house.

Meanwhile two thirds of women took less than three months to decide their choice of new car, but one in ten said they spent longer searching for a new car than they did searching for their wedding dress.

Sounds just like Thailand, where men spend around two bottles of beer while choosing their lifetime’s partner. (Hillary told me!)

Autotrivia Quiz

Last week’s quiz car

Last week, still hoping to confound the ‘Googlers’ I asked what is this car and what is its year? It was a 1941 Chrysler Thunderbolt, and was known as the ‘Copper car’ with the copper bumpers and hard top.

So to this week. What rally had five starters? Clues: the winner waited 50 km from the finish so that a lavish reception could be arranged. Three of the remaining cars arrived three weeks later, and one broke down 12 km after the start.

For the Automania free beer this week, be the first correct answer to email [email protected].