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2015 Spanish F1 Grand Prix makes its Deutsche mark

The first race of the European Formula One season inaugurates the second phase of the Championship. Teams overhaul their cars with the big updates they've been working on since Australia, and at the end of The Battle of Spain we find out how the positions on the field have changed. Mercedes-AMG Petronas driver Nico Rosberg brought a big update to his psychology, straight-up beating teammate Lewis Hamilton to take his first pole position of the season. Mercedes owns the front row and Ferrari maintains its status as primary challenger, Sebastian Vettel lining up in third. Williams proved it's been hitting the books to do better in class, though, Valtteri Bottas slotting into fourth. And Toro Rosso's visit to a track that rewards strong aero rewarded them with the best team grid position since the Italian Grand Prix in 2008: Carlos Sainz secured fifth, ahead of Max Verstappen in sixth. Kimi Raikkonen's bout of Saturday woes – it seems the Finn is always handicapped by lots of tiny issues – continued in Barcelona with one of his sets of prime tires getting cooked by malfunctioning tire warmers. He recovered well enough to take seventh on the grid, but he's got some strong competition ahead of him. He led three other drivers in the Continuous Issues department, Daniil Kvyat unable to wrestle his Infiniti Red Bull Racing higher than eighth, Williams driver Felipe Massa getting it wrong in Turn 3 to fall five places behind his teammate Bottas, and Daniel Ricciardo in the second Red Bull enduring another engine change and sloppy car behavior to get tenth. And while it turned out to be a steady race a little rough around the edges, the positions on the battlefield just might have changed. A little. Of the 66 laps in the race we might have seen Rosberg for three of them – maybe. The German got a smashing start, had a clear lead into Turn 1, and after that we checked in occasionally during his two pit stops and again at the checkered flag. He owned the entire weekend the way we're used to seeing his teammate do, and the cameras left him alone to run his race. No one got within seven seconds of him during the first third, and as the pit stop strategies played out that cushion grew. He finished seventeen seconds ahead of Hamilton, and 45 seconds ahead of third-placed Vettel. Hamilton, on the back foot all three days, stumbled out of the gate.

Ferrari 400 Superamerica fetches record $7.6 million at auction

RM Auctions and its new partners at Sotheby's are no strangers to setting records at classic car auctions – especially when it comes to Ferraris. And now they've set another with the sale of this gorgeous 1962 Ferrari 400 Superamerica SWB Cabriolet. Sold as part of the father-and-son Paul & Chris Andrews Collection last weekend, chassis number 3309 SA fetched a whopping $7,645,000. That's a fair bit more than the similar, green over red, open-headlight example which the same auction house sold just a couple of months ago for $6.38 million, and far outstrips the $4,070,000 paid earlier this year at Gooding & Co.'s Scottsdale auction for a white Aerodinamico coupe. A 1963 Ferrari 400 Superamerica LWB Coupe Aerodinamico also sold for $2.86 million at the Andrews Collection sale. Succeeding the earlier 410 Superamerica, the 400 Superamerica was the Bugatti Veyron of its day: extremely expensive, exceedingly rare, and incredibly fast. Only 47 examples were made, seven of which were bodied by Pininfarina, and this was the last of them: a convertible with removable hard top and covered headlights. This was the show car which Ferrari exhibited at both the Geneva and New York auto shows upon its completion, originally in red over tan, before its first owner took it to the Bonneville Salt Flats. It subsequently bounced between a few owners over the following decades, undergoing restorations along the way and picking up numerous awards. It most recently served as the centerpiece of the Paul and Chris Andrews Collection in Fort Worth, TX, which RM Sotheby's liquidated over the weekend. The Superamerica was, of course, the top lot sold, but far from the only one: the auction featured another 15 seven-figure lots, including Packards, Duesenbergs, and more. All told, the event brought in a massive $53,887,585, setting a new record for a private automobile collection auction after every one of the lots sold.

Ferrari SF-15T will look to reclaim former F1 glories in 2015

The parade of cars for the 2015 Formula One World Championship continues apace, as Scuderia Ferrari has unveiled the vehicle that fans of the Italian team will doubtlessly be hoping drivers Sebastian Vettel and Kimi Raikkonen will pilot to victory. After the questionable styling of last year's vehicles, this new Ferrari continues the trend of more aesthetically pleasing designs. The vacuum-cleaner-like snout of last year's F-14T has been replaced with a longer, rounded bill that feeds more gracefully towards the cockpit. The new front end is arguably the most noticeable change for 2015, while changes elsewhere on the open-wheeler's body are mere evolutions of last year's design. In fact, that's kind of the theme around the SF-15T. The brake-by-wire system, clutch and gear ratios (which are locked after the first race) have all been optimized based on last season's experiences, while the weight of the car has increased by just 11 kilograms, as per sporting regulations. Take a look at Ferrari's batch of images showing its new challenger, and let us know whether you think this new design will fare better than last year's troubled F-14T. TECHNICAL FEATURE OF THE SF-15T The SF15-T the sixty first car built by Ferrari specifically to take part in the Formula 1 World Championship. It is the second car made by Ferrari since the reintroduction of turbo engines in 2014. The first year of these new regulations was extremely challenging for the Scuderia and the lessons learned have been applied vigorously to the SF15-T to create a car that is in every respect a large step forwards with respect to the F14-T. Chassis The most striking visual difference between the SF15-T and its predecessor is the lowering of the front end of the car in accordance with the change of regulations for the 2015 season. After a few seasons of rather unappealing aesthetics, the 2015 rules permit the SF15-T an attractive nose shape which also brings excellent aerodynamic performance. Aside from the nose area, the regulations for 2015 are largely unchanged. This has given the Team a stable base on which to engineer a much stronger chassis than the year before: A casual glance at the back of the car reveals a much more tightly packaged rear end which allows more downforce to be extracted from the critical surfaces around the rear of the car. The rear wing family has been extensively redesigned to deliver stable performance in corners while producing a larger DRS effect on the straights.