Ferrari boss: Michael Schumacher poised to return with Mercedes Grand Prix

 Ferrari boss: Michael Schumacher poised to return with Mercedes Grand Prix

Michael Schumacher:

told the president of Ferrari in a telephone conversation this week that he expected to make a Formula One comeback in 2010 with Mercedes-Benz.

German media reports suggest that the deal has been done subject to the fitness of the seven-time world champion, who was unable to make a comeback with Ferrari last September due to a neck injury sustained in a motorcycle accident earlier in the year.

While hosting a pre-Christmas lunch in Maranello, Ferrari boss Luca di Montezemolo said of Schumacher: “We spoke yesterday [Wednesday]. He told me there was a strong possibility [that he would race for Mercedes Grand Prix], but it was not 100-percent decided.

Di Montezemolo, who apparently was surprised, added, “I thought there must be someone else who sounded like him. The real Michael Schumacher is a Ferrari consultant who confirmed to me that he will finish his career with Ferrari. The other one is also German, he has the same name, same age, 40 or 41, but this one has decided to do a new career. Everybody can do what they prefer in life. It is wonderful he wants to try again. I like these people. But it is not the Michael I know. It is his twin.”

Di Montezemolo continued:

“I have cried in this job twice. The first time was in 1975 at Monza when Niki [Lauda] won the championship for Ferrari for the first time in 13 years. The second time was when Michael got out of the car for the last time at a track day. It was very moving. For me, this is difficult. If I talk with him as a friend and see this determination [to race again], I am pleased. But as the president of Ferrari, I am sad. He has given a lot to Ferrari and received a lot from us.

“This is why we have to accept that there is another guy called Michael, not the real Michael that we knew. I don't know what the possibilities are at Mercedes for this other Michael."

The irony here is that it was di Montezemolo who first got Schumacher fired up about making a comeback, when he asked the seven-time world champion to stand in for the injured Felipe Massa after last year's Hungarian Grand Prix.

“I called Michael and told him I needed his help to replace Felipe,” di Montezemolo said. “For five minutes he said no. I had to convince him to consider it. Then he said yes. When I spoke to him again, he had been to see his doctor in Germany. He said he could not do anything because of the problems with his neck. He was more than sad--he was destroyed."

It seems that once introduced to the idea of racing again, Schumacher became set on it. With Massa and Fernando Alonso signed up for 2010, however, there was no vacancy at Ferrari, which was why, as di Montezemolo has now confirmed, the Scuderia tried to persuade the FIA to change the rules and allow teams to race a third car.

Separately, the German newspaper, Bild reported that Schumacher's 2010 Mercedes Grand Prix deal had been signed subject to the medical examinations, and that his program would begin before the end of this month in Abu Dhabi, where he would drive a GP2 car on the Yas Island circuit.

Mercedes-Benz Motorsport director Norbert Haug has declined to comment. However, Daimler boss Dieter Zetsche confirmed to Bild that the identity of the team's second driver would not be announced until after the New Year.

All the signs are that subject to the condition of his neck, Schumacher will be Nico Rosberg's teammate next season, racing for the brand that got him started in big-time motor racing.

Schumacher will be 41 on Jan. 3. His younger rivals might care to note that Juan Fangio did not even race a Grand Prix car until he was 38 years old, won his first world championship two years later, and clinched his fifth title at the age of 46.

The 2010 Mercury Milan Hybrid

SENIOR WEB REPORTER GREG MIGLIORE: 

                      The watershed moment in the Mercury Milan Hybrid came for me as I was dashing across town for a lunch meeting. Merging onto an expressway in close quarters where lanes begin and end rapidly, I was able to punch the throttle, bring the car up to speed to avoid a guy in a Camaro and set sail down the interstate.

It was perfectly normal.

The Milan is more representative of the direction hybrids are going: mainstream. And that's what this car is. It drives normal. Your can put stuff in it. It has enough power for regular driving. It's neither eye-catching nor offensive.

All of this stands out to me because this could be a decent family car, if a midsized sedan is what your family needs. That's in contrast to the driving characteristics of the Honda Insight, the most recent hybrid I've driven. That car makes more of a design statement and has a creative interior, but frankly, driving the Insight on the expressway--in the rain--was not something to relish.

The area where the Milan does stand out is the dash, which is colorful, informative and--dare I say--fun to use. This is part of a concentrated effort by Ford to dress up its hybrids and make them enjoyable to drive--without beating you over the head with green feelings. The eco gauges open with the turn of the key and offer plenty of useful info. The instantaneous fuel economy was nice, the leaves were cool, and in general it was fairly easy to comprehend, considering the wealth of information you can configure it to show you.

I also give props to the navigation system, which returns eco information about the car's internals, as well as useful info such as local gas prices. It's a typical Mercury interior--comfortable, nice leathers and well-done overall. At idle, the car is eerily quiet, especially in electric mode. The stop/start feature works well for the most part, particularly at traffic lights.

The steering is a touch light, but that's the Milan, not any indictment on the hybrid version. And the car handles and brakes fine.

I made a point being heavy on the accelerator a couple times and was surprised that this car never really wheezed. I also got fuel mileage pretty close to the EPA numbers. I didn't crack 40 mpg, but mid- to upper-30s readings were no problem.

It was not an adrenaline-inducing weekend for me. But this is a fine execution of a contemporary hybrid, in my judgment.

COPY EDITOR CYNTHIA OROSCO: It's nice to get the look and feel of the Milan/Ford Fusion/Lincoln MKZ with the fuel economy and green goodness of a hybrid--especially when the car has such good power. Even clipping down the expressways at nearly 80, I was still getting 30-plus mpg, according to the cool instrument cluster that shows you how well (or poorly) you're doing on fuel economy. I like the gauges and the leaves and watching how well you're doing on the mileage, but it can be distracting.

Something that also can be distracting is the navigation screen in the center stack, although I really like it. The screen is nice and bright and provides a variety of information in a compact space. But it would be nice to have the screen and controls angled a bit. It's sometimes difficult to read/reach with the vertical setup. Otherwise, the interior of the Milan looked good, the seats were comfy and there was good space throughout. Ditto for the trunk. And thankfully, the start/stop feature wasn't jerky at takeoff, like some other hybrids. It was very smooth, as was the night overall in the Milan Hybrid.

2010 Mercury Milan Hybrid

Base Price: $28,225

As-Tested Price: $33,075

Drivetrain: 2.5-liter I4; FWD, continuously variable transmission

Output: 156 hp @ 6,000 rpm, 136 lb-ft @ 2,250 rpm

Curb Weight: 3,729 lb

Fuel Economy (EPA/AW): 39/23.2 mpg

Options: Rapid spec 300A including moon-and-tune package moon roof, Sony sound system/CDx6/MP3 capable with 12 speakers, driver's vision package including blind-spot information system with cross-traffic alert, rear-view camera, rear spoiler, leather-trimmed seats with heated front ($3,735); dual-zone air conditioning ($1,775)

Anti Lock Brake System

Anti Lock Brake System

ABS System

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The EFI SyStem

Electronic fuel injection

Electronic fuel injection

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2010 Tesla Roadster Sport

2010 Tesla Roadster Sport: Electric chic gets quicker--it's EV with attitude

One thing that surely anybody alive and breathing just about has to love is mashing the accelerator pedal in an electric car--more so if it's an electric car designed primarily to thrill you.

Except for drag racers and guys who regularly pilot those reverse bungee-cord human-slingshot rides at state fairs--and maybe even them, too--the thrill of silently and suddenly ker-thwapping yourself to 60 in a one-speed Tesla Roadster and then watching it zwip all the way up to its 14,000-rpm redline is just about unsurpassed. We spent a couple of hours doing that. Whew!
As if the “base” Tesla Roadster's 0-to-60-mph time of 3.9 seconds wasn't enough, the Roadster Sport model now does 0 to 60 in 3.7 seconds.
“Nobody ever complained about the power [of the base Roadster],” said Tesla's Jeremy Snyder, manager of the SoCal region for the company. “But there's a heck of a lot of people who wanted it.”
Getting it wasn't all that hard. A hand-wound stator with increased winding density and unique firmware give the Roadster Sport 295 lb-ft of torque, compared with the standard car's 273 lb-ft. That's 288 hp compared with 248, to look at it another way.
The Roadster Sport also has 10-way adjustable shocks with remote reservoirs, three-way adjustable antiroll bars, Tesla's own forged-alloy wheels and Yokohama AO48 Ultra High Performance tires, 195/50R-16s in front and 225/45R-17s in the rear. You even get “Roadster Sport” badging on the doorsills, on the rear deck and under the rear hatch.
How does it work? As we said, in a straight line, it's thrilling. Launching up on-ramps and into open spaces anywhere traffic allows will make you downright giddy. But with nearly 1,000 pounds of batteries inside, the Tesla understeers in corners. It does so less at lower speeds, and we know that you can make just about anything plow into a corner if you enter it too fast. But as you approach what might be called spirited driving, the car feels all of its 2,723 pounds. If you've driven any of the Lotus roadsters from which the Tesla traces its basic structure, you will really notice the extra weight. But if you haven't, chances are you'll find this to be a sprightly ride. And it's definitely the best-handling electric car in the world.

A picture of 2010 Tesla Roadster Sport

The 2010 Tesla Roadster Sport makes electric driving even more fun.

The 2010 models also get a host of improvements: a push-button gear selector, a (dinky) glovebox, an HVAC system that doesn't sacrifice your comfort for the comfort of the battery pack and increased use of sound-deadening material throughout to make what was an almost silent car even quieter.
Tesla quotes range for either model at 244 miles, while pointing out that an owner in Australia recently went 313 miles on a single charge. It depends on how you drive. We chose the “performance” mode instead of the “max range” mode. But you can switch back and forth with a toggle of the key.
On our drive, we started out with the bar graph that indicated battery charge almost all the way to the full side. Our potential range was listed at 184 miles driving as you would on the EPA city cycle. Driven as the car had been in its last 30 miles by Snyder, we were given a range of 119 miles. We started on the freeway at normal speeds, where the dials indicated that we were drawing 20 kilowatts at 65 mph (imagine 20 hair dryers moving your car down the freeway). Later, up on Mulholland, there was some spirited driving, followed by a return on Pacific Coast Highway to the Tesla store in Westwood, mostly done at traffic-induced reasonable speeds. When we got back, after 78.2 miles total, the dash readouts said we had a 99-mile range driv-ing in ideal mode and 110 as driven. The battery charge was just less than half full. Pour those numbers into whatever wacky formula you choose to come up with a mpg equivalent.
Tesla has now delivered about 900 cars worldwide, 300 of them in SoCal. Are they going to make it and be the next General Motors/Toyota/Mercedes or only the next Corbin Sparrow? We like the car and have enjoyed every Tesla we've been in over the years. There will be pundits who say that for our Roadster Sport's $128,500 sticker price you could get fill-in-the-blank: 45 Bugeye Sprites, 400 two-stroke dirt bikes, 10 weeks at a Club Med, hair transplants for everyone you know, etc.
Regardless, it's good to have the choice. And if the price of gasoline goes up and all of the companies that say they're going to make electric cars actually do, the choices will grow exponentially. Choice is good.


2010 Tesla Roadster Sport
ON SALE: Now
BASE PRICE: $128,500
DRIVETRAIN: 288-hp, 295-lb-ft, 375-volt AC induction air-cooled electric motor; RWD, single-speed fixed gear with 8.28:1 overall final drive
CURB WEIGHT: 2,723 lb
0-60 MPH: 3.7 sec (mfr)
FUEL ECONOMY: 244-mile range

Rolls-Royce Ghost, an AW Flash Drive

What is it? What it isn’t is a 7-series with a Rolls-Royce body. No, the Ghost is the new baby Rolls, and it shares less than 20 percent of parts with the big BMW. Underhood the Ghost uses BMW’s V12 engine block, stroked to 6.6 liters. The twin-turbo V12 produces 563 hp, good enough for a 4.7-second 0 to 60 mph time. It will go on sale in February for $250,000, including destination and gas guzzler charges.

What’s it like to drive? Awesome, as you’d expect. The Ghost feels a lot more British than we thought it would. It drives very much like a Rolls: Smooth, smooth ride, seamless acceleration and whisper quiet at all speeds. The car will actually go through corners as well, with nicely weighted steering and adaptive roll control. It is fast and, did we say smooth? The car feels well connected to the road.

Do I want it? Indeed you do. It’s the everyday Rolls-Royce. Rolls says it has orders for 1,500 cars already, and all will be built at the firm’s Goodwood assembly plant. It’s an impressive car, gorgeous inside and out, and one that should be hugely successful. It deserves to be.

The 2009 BMW 335i Coupe, an AW Drivers Log

The 2009 BMW 335i Coupe, 

An AW Drivers Log

MOTORSPORTS EDITOR MAC MORRISON: Fantastic car, though this price tag is about as high as it should ever go. But the 3-series is, in many ways, the Porsche 911 of the luxury/sport sedan/coupe world: Timeless styling that harks back to the original and improved and refined performance each time around. As with the 911, you often wonder how BMW could possibly continue improving this model range, yet it does time and time again.
A negative: Echoing the sentiments of Editor Wes Raynal every time he drives a car equipped with run-flat tires, this rubber is not nice in the ride-quality dept, at least when you drive it in the state with the country's worst roads. The impact harshness through these tires is borderline brutal. I'd rather have a donut spare tire and some standard non-run-flat tires. It's not worth the tradeoff on a daily basis.
I do have some questions about the sport package: Does it not include suspension changes? It's just seats, trim and increased top-speed limiter? So what, it is up from 155 mph to, what? And what kind of option is that? Not that I don't like it in theory, but what practical good does that do you in this country? Of course, if I owned one of these, I would want that option, if only to know the car could do more than 155, even if I never approached that speed on a public road.
Oh, I love this Montego blue paint, by the way.
This car handles great, looks great, brakes and steers great. You can drive it on the throttle, and it seems BMW has addressed the turbo-lag problem that a software update created a couple years ago. As it is, this turbocharged six-cylinder is outstanding in its power delivery and flexibility. And 300 hp is just about perfect for most who will drive this car.
Another winner from BMW. But you knew that already.
2009 BMW 335i Coupe
In Fleet: Oct. 8-22
Base Price: $43,025
As-Tested Price: $50,270
Drivetrain: 3.0-liter twin-turbocharged I6; RWD, six-speed manual
Output: 300 hp @ 5,800 rpm, 300 lb-ft @ 1,400-5,000 rpm
Curb Weight: 3,571 lb
Fuel Economy (EPA/AW): 20/20.5 mpg
Options: Premium package including universal garage-door opener, digital compass mirror, auto-dimming mirrors, auto-dimming rearview mirrors, lumbar support, BMW assist with Bluetooth ($2,650); sport package including sport seats, shadowline trim, increased top-speed limited ($1,550); 19-inch wheels with performance tires ($1,000); satellite radio with one-year subscription ($595); Montego blue metallic paint ($550); heated front seats ($500); iPod, USB adapter ($400)