Tag Archives: Nurburgring

The slowest car they have ever built – Audi R8

For the 8th day of Christmas and first day of the New Year I present this Audi R8.

According to the on line publicity it takes 70 skilled workers to fit over 5,000 unique parts to each vehicle and build 25 of these cars a day.

These vents direct air straight through the car.

The aluminium space frame which includes 99 meters of welds, 782 punch rivets, 308 self tapping screws, and 113 weld studs takes 45 minutes to manufacture.

The R8 rides on a magnetic damping system which provides the the driver with two modes of ride, comfort or sport.

This is the first Audi to compete with Porsche it is not quite as quick to accelerate but has been demonstrated to have slightly better handling than the 997.

Powered by a 420 hp all aluminium dry sump 32 valve V8 with Fuel Stratified Injection, FSI, the R8 is capable of a 12.8 sec 1/4 mile and a top speed in excess of 185 mph.

Audi use 210 exterior LED’s in the R8, 186 of them as brake lights which run at 5,700 degrees centigrade, they are said to use 50% less energy than conventional bulbs.

Expect to see racing versions of the R8 in two wheel drive form make an impact in GT3 racing in the coming year particularly at the annual 24 hour Nurburgring race.

Hope you have enjoyed to today’s LED edition of ‘Getting a lil’ psycho on tyres and that you will join me tomorrow living the life of Riley. Wishing you all a healthy and happy New Year, don’t forget to come back now !

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Maserati 250 F

I apologise to all my Rowdy friends who will have seen this car before on rowdy.com but I have expanded on that original post in this blog in honour of Canadian artist Paul Chenard who very kindly helped me out with another project I am working on. If you like drawings and paintings of old racing cars you’ll love his gallery linked here.

The 250 F was first raced in 1954 by 1951 world drivers champion Juan Manuel Fangio who took a maiden outing win in Argentina and then won again, having missed the 1954 Indy 500, at the following race in Belgium.

Juan then went on to become Champion in 1954 driving for Mercedes Benz for the rest of the season. With Mercedes at the height of their power in 1955, Maserati were locked out of the top spot in Formula One but in 1956 the 250 F was again driven to two victories by Fangio’s former Mercedes team mate Stirling Moss.

Having been crowned world champion from 1955 – 56 the now four time world champion Fangio returned to Maserati for 1957 and promptly won four of the eight championship races to set a four peat world championship record that stood until 2003.

In that 1957 season Fangio drove one of the races of all time during the German GP, having failed to out fox the Ferrari team after a disastrous pit stop, Juan Manuel set 7 consecutive lap records on the 14 mile Nurburgring Nordschleife making up over 48 seconds before taking the lead from the Mike Hawthorn’s Ferrari with a lap to spare and record the 250 F’s 8th and final Formula One Championship victory.

Fittingly JMF drove his last ever race in a 250F at the 1958 French GP coming 4th, winner Mike Hawthorn sportingly refraining from lapping him on the final lap.

The 250 F continued to appear ever more uncompetitively until 1960.

This 1957 250F is the last of the 26 built. Complete with a six cylinder 240 hp engine.
This car is differentiated from most by a short wheelbase Piccolo chassis.
The 250 F is recorded as being the most forgiving of the 2.5 litre (152.5 CUI) F1 cars by Willy Green who has driven every type of 2.5 litre F1 car competitively in historic races.

Hope you enjoyed today’s post and will join me again tomorrow.

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