1981 Ferrari 308 Gtsi Targa~3.2 328 Gts Engine & Body Update~gto Forged Wheels! on 2040-cars

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Nigel Mansell's Ferrari F40 sells for $870k

If you look at the $1.35 million price tag on the new LaFerrari and wonder how Ferrari can possibly charge that much for a single car, you could look at the prices of its competitors like the McLaren P1 that lists for almost as much at $1.15 million, you could look to the $2.5 million which Ferrari is said to have charged for the exclusive F60 America - or you could look at the prices at which LaFerrari's predecessors are still trading. Take, for example, this Ferrari F40 which, 25 years since it was built, just sold for nearly $870,000 at auction.
The F40 in question, a 1989 model, may be just one of 1,315 examples made, but it has a rather noteworthy provenance: the car once belonged to Nigel Mansell, the only driver ever to hold both the Formula One and Indy titles at the same time. That Mansell - a man who had access to some of the fastest and most capable racing cars ever made - selected the F40 as his personal ride of choice speaks volumes about the car's abilities and appeal. But then he did, after all, drive for the Scuderia that season, winning the Brazilian and Hungarian grands prix.
The celebrity provenance, however, may not have actually jacked the price up at all. While it may rank towards the top of the list, this was hardly the highest price paid for an F40 at auction. According to Sports Car Market, which tracks such sales, the record currently belongs to a 1993 Ferrari F40 LM that Bonhams also sold for $2.2 million at Monterey. The highest price for a standard, non-LM model was recorded at the same event at $1.43 million.

Race Recap: 2013 Bahrain Grand Prix follows the template of this year and last [spoilers]

The sand, the wind, the penalties, the contact and the one crash - all of them collided to make the Bahrain Formula One Grand Prix a surprise affair from day to day and lap to lap. Oh, and did we mention the tires? Pirelli made a last-minute swap after the amusement park ride that the Chinese Grand Prix turned into with the soft compound tire, and brought medium and hard compounds to the desert. That didn't stop things from falling apart for some teams - literally - and that didn't stop the one team that seems to love the hard compound Pirelli tire.

LaFerrari racing prototype spotted in Southern Europe

Rumors have been circulating for a few months now that Ferrari could be gearing up to challenge for outright victory at Le Mans once again with an LMP1 racer of its own. First the head of the sports racing division hinted at the prospect, then the head of the Formula One team lent it more credence, and most recently, the chairman of the company itself confirmed the possibility. We've even heard some rumors over who could drive the thing. But what we haven't seen yet is any solid proof that the Prancing Horse marque has actually been working on such a racecar.
That could be what we're looking at it here, but then again, it might not be. Spied undergoing testing in Southern Europe, this camouflaged test mule appears to be based on the new LaFerrari supercar, but with some key modifications that indicate this isn't the road-going version. The revised aero is a dead giveaway, with that giant front splitter jutting out like a swollen lip and a massive rear wing protruding from the back. The headlights are different, it's got center-lock wheels fitted at each corner and there's a big snorkel air scoop protruding from the engine bay.
What's clear is that this is test mule has definitely been set up for the race track. The only question is, to what end? Even with all the add-ons, it's still nowhere near as extreme as the purpose-built prototypes that Audi, Toyota and Porsche will be fielding in the FIA World Endurance Championship this year, and it's missing key features like the mandatory center tailfin. It could be a platform for testing components to use on an upcoming LMP1, but if not for the aforementioned Le Mans rumors, our money would have been on something else - be it a GT racing version of LaFerrari like Maserati did with the Enzo-based MC12, or a customer track toy to follow in the footsteps of the (also Enzo-based) FXX and the 599XX that followed.