Picture by A1GP.com

All 20 nation representatives burned some rubber for Saturday’s Official Practice, as teams and drivers do their best to find the best set up for their Ferrari powered single seaters, in preparation for Qualifying. David Garza of Team Mexico took the top honours by recording a blistering 1′48.431 with freash set of tires; a full 5 tenths quicker than Switzerland’s Neel Jani as Frenchman Loic Duval, who stopped on track with a techinical problem was two tenths down on Jani’s best lap, setting 1′49.224 in third.

A1 Team Malaysia on the other hand rested their case outside the top ten, in eleventh. Fairuz Fauzy only managed to set a rather modest 1′50.164. Team Korea was again last for the Official Practice, but this time managed to put down 15 crucial laps as Jin Woo Hwang set 1′52.881, about 1.3 seconds adrift from Brazilian Felipe Guimares in 19th spot.

Also bear in mind that all drivers were allowed to utilise their Powerboost option for an entire lap of the Official Practice. The Powerboost option allows drivers to have an extra 60 bhp at their disposal, which can easily translate into about a second in terms of individual lap times at Sepang if used for an entire lap.

Picture by A1GP.com

For today’s Qualifying session, drivers were allowed to make use of the Powerboost for one of four ten-minute sessions for the first time. Best single lap from either first two sessions will determine grid positions for tomorrow’s Sprint race and the grid arrangements for the Feature race will be determined by the fastest single lap posted in one of the last two sessions.

The Qualifying session was green flagged at 2.15pm local time and wheather conditions were dry and sunny, with 66% humidity. First up was the Sprint race qualifyiing session where it was separated into two ten-minute sessions. Five minutes into the first session, red flags were waved as Team Korea’s car stalled on track in a compromising position, which disrupted Fairuz Fauzy’s hot lap.

Team Indonesia was first to set a time, of 1′52.982. Track opened with only 2 minutes 50 seconds to go, and almost all teams exited the pits at one go to set their respective times. All drivers were rushing to cross the start/finish line in time to start their laps, but atleast four teams inlcuding A1 Team Malaysia failed to cross the line in time. Team Swiss was fastest, setting 1′49.173, ahead of Team Ireland and Team Great Briton.

Picture by A1GP.com

In the incident-free second Sprint qualifying run, Team Swiss’s Neel Jani snatched pole in the dying seconds of the session from Team New Zealand, setting 1′47.154. Team New Zealand which utilised the Powerboost option was further pushed down to third by Team France. Team Malaysia on the other hand will start tomorrow’s Sprint race amongst the midfielders in 13th place as Fauzy suffered with some traffic on his flying lap.

After completing both sessions for the Sprint event, the final two sessions for the Feature race got under way. In the first ten-minute session, Team Ireland took the top spot with Team France and Team Australia in second and third respectively. With 10 seconds left for the final session, members of the A1 Team Malaysia were on their toes as Fauzy was still the fastest man on track, after setting 1′47.648.

However at the very end of the session, Adam Carroll snatched pole for Team Ireland with 1′47.124, with Danny Watts of Great Briton in second, and Lebanon’s Daniel Morad finished a suprising third. Good news for the local front as Fauzy will launch his car for tomorrow’s Feature race from fourth. Neel Jani of Switzerland who holds an immaculate record at the Sepang track will start way down from 16th.

Picture by A1GP.com

The Sprint race tomorrow will see all drivers perform a rolling start, with one mandatory pit stop. Drivers will start from a stand still for the Feature race, and this time drivers must perform two mandatory stops. Will the sky throw the rain card tomorrow and will A1 Team Malaysia maintain their lead in the championship? All questions will be answered by 6.15pm tomorrow.

Look after the jump for a set of hi-res photos, including race queens!

Story by Harvinder Singh Sidhu

Click here to read the rest of 2008/09 A1 GP at Sepang: Saturday Report

BMW has released the full 2 minute and 39 second video showcasing all the BMW Performance parts for the new facelifted E90 3-Series Sedan (and the 1-Series too). The aesthetics of the E90’s kit look great except that you kind of feel the front bumper belongs to a complete different set of bodykit. I especially like the M3-ish rear bumper with an integrated diffuser. Those bucket seats look quite cosy as well.

Have a look at the video after the jump to check out all the BMW Performance parts you can fit to your 3-Series or 1-Series, and hear the delicious sound the N52/N54 inline-6 engines can produce when paired with a BMW Performance exhaust system.

Click here to read the rest of VIDEO: BMW Performance kit for the facelifted BMW 3-Series Sedan and the BMW 1-Series

This is the Mitsubishi Zinger, sort of like a replacement for the MPV known as the Mitsubishi Kuda in Indonesia. It’s based on the Mitsubishi Challenger’s ladder-frame rear wheel drive truck platform.

In a nutshell, you could call it Mitsubishi’s equivalent to the Toyota Innova, a cheap way to put together a decently sized 7-seater people carrier that can be priced cheap and positioned lower than premium car-based MPVs such as the Grandis.

The Zinger usually comes with the 2.4 liter 4G64 engine that produces 136 PS at 5,250rpm, and a variant of this engine in a nearly similiar tune is also found in the Chery Eastar MPV. Quite an old design I must say, but in certain markets you can also get a newer model called the “Super Zinger” which features the newer 2.4 liter MIVEC 4G69 engine from the Grandis that produces 159 PS.

It’s currently being sold in Taiwan, China, the Philippines, Vietnam, Costa Rica and Indonesia. There are probably some other countries which I’ve left out. The most recent facelifted model with the 4G69 engine has just recently been launched in China by Southeast Motor.

Southeast calls it an not something simple as an SUV or an MPV… it gets a completely new term called an “MICS-RV”! The M is supposed to stand for Multi-purpose, the I for Interior Roominess and Ride Comfort, the C for Compact body size, the S for Sophisticated Styling, the R for Rough-road capability and the V for value for money. What a tongue twister… phew!

Looking at the success of cheap MPVs like the Nissan Grand Livina and the Toyota Innova here, and Mitsubishi’s uncanny ability to do magic with the pricing of its cars lately such as the massive price cut for Grandis and the Lancer having an unbelievable price for a CBU Japan car, could the Mitsubishi Zinger do well in Malaysia?

Look after the jump for more photos of the Mitsubishi Zinger.

Click here to read the rest of 2009 Mitsubishi Zinger MIVEC launched in China

Picture by A1GP.com

The A1 GP World Cup of Motorsports is in town this weekend for the 2008/09 season’s 3rd round at the Sepang F1 Circuit!

This time round, local fans have a whole new reason to be proud of the A1 Team Malaysia, as the national team arrived at Sepang as leaders of the championship after strong performances in Netherlands and China bagging a total of 28 points.

Their closest rivals; A1 Team Ireland, and A1 Team France are 5 points adrift, both with 23 points each. This doesn’t really come as a surprise as Team Malaysia has been producing rather respectable results since the sport debuted three seasons ago.

This weekend’s event kick started with two main sessions; a rookie session and an Official Practice session. Son of Alain Prost; legendary 4 time F1 championship winner; Nicolas Prost of Team France topped the time sheets for the rookie session with a time of 1′50.679. Great Britain’s Danny Watts was about four tenths of second slower with 1′51.096 while Earl Bamber of New Zealand settled in third with 1′51.240. Leader Team Malaysia took the fourth spot with Aaron Lim steering the 600 hbp Ferrari supplied A1 racer, setting 1′51.815, about six tenths down on Bamber’s fastest time.

The afternoon Official Practice session saw Team Great Briton leading the time sheets with Danny Watts going about a second faster than his rookie session’s best time, lapping 1′50.038 after completing 13 laps. Switzerland’s Neel Jani ended today’s final session after completing 9 laps only in second with a time of 1′50.110. Former F1 driver Narain Karthikeyen of Team India posted the third fastest time with 1′50.187.

Team Malaysia’s Fairuz Fauzy; Sprint race winner at Zantvoort, Netherlands only managed to set 1′50.620, forcing him to settle for tenth position. The time set by Fauzy meant that there was high tension competition among the top ten drivers as all were just within 0.582 of Great Briton’s hot lap.

“I’m quite pleased with our performance this morning; it didn’t take me long to get back on the pace after my first run in Chengdu. I didn’t expect to be so quick this morning and I really enjoyed driving the new car at this track not only because it is my home track, but also because it is the type of track that suits the new A1GP car. It’s good to help the team and share my experience so that A1 Team Malaysia can be highly competitive,” said A1 Team Malaysia rookie Aaron Lim.

Slowest time of the day was set by Satrio Hermanto of Team Indonesia with 1′52.406, as Jin-Woo Hwang of Team Korea failed to put a lap down.

We will bring you updates for tomorrow’s 3rd Official Practice and Qualifying results for both Sprint and Feature races. Weather wise, the forecast is a bit on the wet side with thunderstorms expected in the afternoon. Rain and thunderstorms are also expected on Sunday morning and afternoon respectively.

Story by Harvinder Singh Sidhu

Click here to read the rest of 2008/09 A1 GP at Sepang: Friday Report

It’s official, Porsche will be selling a diesel version of the Cayenne SUV from February 2009 onwards in the European market. Porsche says this decision was made in response to changed legal regulations especially in European markets, which offered tax incentives for vehicles with diesel engines.

The Porsche Cayenne Diesel will use the Volkswagen Group’s 3.0 liter turbodiesel V6 producing 240 horsepower and 550Nm of torque, mated to Porsche’s Tiptronic-S transmission. It will be sold in Europe from 47,250 Euros onwards. The price tag in Germany will be 56,436 Euros in German trim, inclusive of a 19% VAT.

For those who don’t want to go down the oil burner route with a Cayenne TDI diesel but still want to make whatever green statement one can make with a large SUV like a Cayenne, a gasoline-electric hybrid version of the Cayenne will come later.

With this piece of news I immediately wonder… any room for a more powerful Cayenne “Diesel GTS” with the 6.0 liter V12 TDI found in one of the Audi Q7 models?

The new 2009 BMW 3-Series Sedan facelift is now in Malaysia, a timely launch as it now faces competition from the B8 Audi A4 and the new W204 C-Class. All models are locally assembled, with one four-cylinder engine and 3 six-cylinder engines.

There’s no need to talk about the E90’s lovely handling but it promises it could be slightly better now thanks to a new rear track which is wider by 24mm.

New to the range is the 323i Sedan which brings entry-level inline-6 power to the 3-Series, range allowing many aspiring E90 owners to experience the sweet smooth-revving magnesium-alloy N52 engine instead of settling for the 156hp inline-4. The 323i’s engine is detuned version of the 2.5 liter unit in the 325i Sports, producing 190 horsepower and 230Nm of torque instead of 218 horsepower and 250Nm of torque.

The interior is largely the same except for uprated padding on the door armrests for more comfort, and the biggest change of all, the latest generation of BMW’s iDrive system, with an 8.8 inch high resolution LCD screen. It’s no longer the North-South-East-West and laggy system that it was in the past - the new iDrive system is so much easier to use and now uses a hard drive-based storage system.

The 80GB drive is used to store the navigation data and 8GB of capacity is also reserved for your personal music collection. iDrive can copy music files off your iPod, MP3 player or USB thumbdrive, or even rip your audio CDs and store it in the car so you don’t really have to bring your player around if you want to listen to your music in your car.

I tried the iDrive system and found it so much better and faster to respond as well. Navigation is now via a vertical scrolling list instead of the NSEW and stacked menus that the old iDrive had. It takes some learning but once you’re used to it you can navigate through the menus so much faster and far more intuitive.

The following are the E90 facelift models on sale in Malaysia:

All are CKD except for the 335i Individual. The 325i and the 330i is now missing from the line-up, as are the 320i and 320d Touring (stationwagon) models which existed with the pre-facelift line-up but are now gone because of poor response from the public.

Stay tuned for a test drive report next week.

Click here to read the rest of Facelifted BMW 3-Series now available in Malaysia!

The new Mazda 3 Sedan has been unveiled at the 2008 LA Auto Show and if this is how Mazda’s new corporate nose is going to look like, it looks like giant smiley grilles like the Peugeot 308’s grille is the new “in thing”, replacing the trapezoidal shield grille of Audi fame. In fact, the new Mazda 3 is so smiley that forumer Mizzoustud from the Mustangworld forums created a new smiley for it.
  

Anyway jokes aside, the new Mazda 3 is based on the old Mazda 3 chassis and even they admit this but Mazda claims it has made “subtle yet comprehensive” refinements to it.

For one, the electric power steering now has a 3-point mounting instead of a 2-point mounting to allow reduction in stiffness of the steering gear bushes. This can reduce vibrations transferred through rough pavements. The unibody joints on the chassis have been improved to reduce the transmission of road and powertrain noise into the passenger cabin.

The chassis also has improved suspension anchor points, welding and adhesive techniques and a better door design. The rear monotube shocks have also been recalibrated, and the front and rear antiroll bars have a new more substantial mounting arrangement. The lower control arm bushes, subframe bushes and mounting bushes have been stiffened to improve steering feel and response as well as cornering grip.

Click for enlarge image

On the rear, a redesigned crossmember is lighter and stiffer, also contributing to better handling. The braking system also gets an improvment - a new vacuum booster for better pedal response.

The car has a drag coefficient of 0.29 cD and despite the huge smiley front grille, Mazda claims its actually 20% smaller to minimize the mount of airflow into the engine bay to only the amount needed for intake and cooling purposes - this improves aerodynamics.

Two engines are available for the American market - both are inline-4 units. One is a 2.0 liter unit producing 148hp at 6,500rpm and 183Nm of torque at 4,500rpm, while the larger one is a 2.5 liter unit producing 167hp at 6,000rpm and 228Nm of torque at 4,000rpm. The power figures are slightly lower for models sold in states like California where emissions rulings are stiffer. Both manual and auto trannys are 5-speed units.

Look after the jump for a whole load of photos and a video of the new Mazda 3.

Click here to read the rest of 2010 Mazda 3 Sedan: official details and photos!

Hyundai has developed a new turbocharged gasoline direct injection version of its Theta family engine. The Theta family is essentially a derivative of the GEMA World Engine project, a joint venture between Hyundai-Kia, Chrysler and Mitsubishi. It comes in 1.8, 2.0 and 2.4 liter sizes.

Derivatives of the GEMA engine found in cars sold in Malaysia include the Kia Optima 2.0, the Naza Citra II Rondo, the Mitsubishi Lancer and the Lancer Evolution. There have already been two turbocharged applications of GEMA derivatives in the market, a 2.4 liter turbo by Chrysler and a 2.0 turbo by Mitsubishi found in the Lancer Evolution.

Hyundai claims their Theta Turbo GDI engine has a capacity for up to 286 horsepower so far. Other than gasoline direct injection, it also features continuous variable valve timing. Various states of tune will probably be available - perhaps 200hp, 240hp and 286hp versions depending on the car its installed in.

The TUNE IT! SAFE! program is an initiative by the German Federal Ministry of Transport, the VDAT (Association of German Car Tuners) and Messe Essen (Essen trade fair company) and is held in conjunction with the Essen Motor Show every year, which for 2008 is coincidentally this month.

According to the organizers, German car enthusiasts spend as much as 4.4 billion Euros every year to modify their cars! There is of course safe tuning and modification with proper tested and proven accessories and there is of course inferior, inexpensive pirated copies of products. In fact, you could even call aftemarket HID kits which are not really engineered to point its beam properly as an unsafe modification.

Every year the TUNE IT! SAFE! program has prime examples of good and safe modification on display and this year there is this nice police-liveried Volkswagen Scirocco you see here. Look for more photos of it after the jump.

Click here to read the rest of Volkswagen Scirocco TUNE IT! SAFE! Concept

Lexus has unveiled the new Lexus RX range at the 2008 Los Angeles Auto Show today. The RX will be offered with a two-model range, the RX350 with a regular 3.5 liter V6 engine and the RX450h also with a 3.5 liter V6, but running on the Atkinson cycle together with a hybrid electric system. In the UK, the RX will be offered exclusively as a hybrid.

The RX350’s 3.5 liter V6 engine puts out 275 horsepower, mated to a 6-speed transmission. Both front wheel drive and all-wheel drive versions are available, with the latter using an Active Torque Control AWD system that varies torque distribution according to driving conditions. Both this model and the hybrid version uses a new double-wishbone rear suspension for better control.

While current Lexus cars use a simple touch screen interface to access its in-car entertainment and navigation systems, with the new RX, Lexus now has its own iDrive/MMI-like system.

It uses a “Remote Touch” controller that’s supposed to be as natural to the driver’s hand as a computer’s mouse. Let’s see if the Japanese get it better than the Germans. The system also uses HDD-based storage.

The hybrid RX450h’s 3.5 liter Atkinson cycle engine together with its hybrid electric drive system has a combined output of 295 horsepower. To differentiate it from the regular combustion engine-only RX350, it has its own front grille and bumper design, hybrid badging, blue-trimmed Lexus logos, an optional 19 inch wheel design that’s exclusive to the RX450h, blue-tinted headlamps and taillamps and optional LED headlamps.

The RX450h’s Lexus Hybrid Drive system has two new features - the first is an exhaust gas heat recovery system that reduces the time it takes for the engine to warm up. As only a sufficiently warmed up engine can do automatic stop and go smoothly, this reduces the time it takes for the start-stop feature to be activated. The second feature is a cooled exhaust recirculation system which reduces pumping losses, helping improve power and fuel economy.

Unlike the RX350’s mechanical all-wheel drive, the RX450h’s Lexus Hybrid Drive can allows it to function as an all-wheel drive via an electric motor powering the rear wheels. The rear motor also functions as a brake energy recovery device, which means brake energy recovery can be performed on all four wheels.

Lexus Malaysia Sdn Bhd has been known to bring in new Lexus products rather quickly into the market (partly thanks to the ease of bringing in a CBU model), and looking at how the second generation RX has been spoiled by all the grey market RX and Toyota Harriers running around being sold at a much cheaper price, you can expect the new RX to make a Malaysian debut very soon next year.

Look for a hi-res gallery of the new RX after the jump.

Click here to read the rest of 3rd Generation Lexus RX unveiled at LA 2008!