Hypercar class in jeopardy

Earlier this week we heard that Aston Martin is pulling out of the new Hypercar class, and therefore the Valkyrie project was put on hold (canceled?). So far only Toyota has what looks to be a “working project”, but nothing yet from McLaren, Peugeot or Glickenhause. Well, the later, on Tweeter, said they do have something in the oven. We’re almost in March now, and Le Mans is in June, so with all that (lack of) news I’m worried.

Jalopnik has a much better story on this. And unfortunately, it’s a troublesome read.

Pikes Peak: the last of the totally bonkers races?

Honestly, I’m amazed it still hasn’t been banned yet. No guardrails, no braking markers, not many turn indicators, nothing. And of course, to the side of the road there’s a precipice. If that isn’t enough, take into consideration that cars manage all that at around 220 km/h. Oh, and close to the top, the air becomes a LOT thinner, so in theory you should take an oxygen bottle.

Bonkers, to say the least šŸ˜².

Books – Enzo Ferrari

I’m half way through this book, and I can’t recommend it more. Very nicely written, with tons of info specially about the back-stages of what happened in Maranello. I always knew Enzo Ferrari was kind of an a-hole, but in reality, the man was a grade A+ summa com laude a-hole. Still, the best thing about the book in my opinion is to see how absolutely brutal GP and F1 racing was back then.

Even if you are not a ferrarista, this is a very interesting read for the gearhead and race fan in general.

Le Mans 1968

Produced by Ferodo (yes, the brake pad brand), this is a 30 minutes glimpse into the 1968 race. With footage both from the race per se and the paddocks, it gives a good idea of what was Le Mans 52 years ago. Things were a LOT different back then compared to nowadays. Almost to a point, that if I didn’t know better, I would say it didn’t look “professional”.

So if you have 30 minutes to spare, it’s a nice film. Just for fun, I tried to spot the cars that I have in the film. However I wasn’t very successful, since I only have four cars of that race. And even worse, two are stinkers šŸ˜–.