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Ferrari renews partnership with Marlboro [UPDATE]

Formula One and Big Tobacco may have parted ways years ago, but the alliance between Ferrari and Marlboro continues on, apparently as strong as ever. Though neither party has made any official announcement or revealed any details of the arrangement, reports from the motorsport press indicate that the Scuderia and Philip Morris – the tobacco company which owns the Marlboro brand – have signed an extension of their longstanding partnership. Marlboro first arrived in Maranello way back in 1973, ramping up over the years to become its main sponsor by '93. The Italian outfit changed its name to Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro after the tobacco brand parted company with McLaren in '97. After tobacco advertising was ultimately banned in 2006 (at least in Europe), Ferrari was forced to remove the Marlboro branding from its cars, but the name stuck – and so did the logo, in various forms of obscurity and subliminality through 2010. The Marlboro name was dropped from the team's handle in 2011, but that didn't stop the two from renewing their partnership. And now they've reportedly extended again through 2018. Though the deal hardly comes as a surprise (even given the complete lack of discernible public association between the two), we don't doubt that Maurizio Arrivabene – the former Marlboro exec who recently took over the struggling team – had something to do with it. UPDATE: A spokesman for Scuderia Ferrari downplayed the significance of the story, telling Autoblog by correspondence that "the contract is extended through 2018 and details are confidential." UPDATE 2: Philip Morris International responded to our inquiry with the following statement: "Our agreement with Ferrari has been extended beyond 2015, but we are not in a position to provide financial or other details. This partnership provides us with opportunities such as enabling our adult consumers and business partners to experience motor racing through Ferrari factory visits and attending F1 races."

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.

Chris Harris enjoys the song of a Ferrari 212

We often see Chris Harris sliding around in the modern elite of supercars, but he eschews every bit of the cutting edge in his latest clip for the opportunity to get behind the wheel of an absolute classic. Harris drives a 1952 Ferrari 212 Barchetta with a body by Touring, and the Italian hills come alive with the sound of this little car's beautiful music. The V12 engine that's nestled under the Barchetta's hood might be short on displacement, but this thing can absolutely roar. It thunders down the road under hard acceleration and then makes a symphony of pops and snaps as the driver downshifts into a corner. You can own this Ferrari, too. RM Auctions is selling it, but the reserve is somewhere between 5 million and 7 million euros ($5.6 million - $7.9 million). Given Harris' proclivity to slide just about anything he drives, do you think he drifts this Barchetta? Watch the video to find out, and it's probably worth turning up the speakers, too.

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.

All four Ferrari hypercars hit Fiorano at once

Some supercar fanatics would give anything for a chance to drive a Ferrari, much less one of its flagship hypercars. But this one lucky devil got to drive all four of 'em. At Fiorano. Of course this isn't just any old lucky devil. He's Dario Benuzzi, who's been Ferrari's chief test driver since 1969. That means he probably knows the company's private Fiorano test track better than anyone, and he has one of the best jobs in the world. But even this had to be a treat for Benuzzi, driving the F40, F50, Enzo, and LaFerrari back to back around the circuit. (All they need now is a 288 GTO to round out the action, like one owner did when he drove down to Italy with his best buddies in a convoy of scarlet hypercars, pictured in the gallery below.) Watch the video above to see it all go down and to hear some of Benuzzi's impressions on the progress of the flagship Ferrari. Related Gallery LaFerrari family portrait News Source: Ferrari via YouTube Ferrari Supercars Videos ferrari laferrari fiorano ferrari f40

Listen to the Ferrari 488 GTB for the first time

We've received the initial information, seen it on the floor of the Geneva Motor Show and even played around with the online configurator. The one thing we haven't seen (or heard) just yet is the new Ferrari 488 GTB actually firing up. (Well, that and driving the thing, but let's not get ahead of ourselves.) Fortunately some paparazzi with a video camera have caught the new mid-engined, eight-cylinder Ferrari undergoing testing – still under wraps despite having already been unveiled – in Maranello, entering and exiting the factory. And in case you were worried that the twin turbochargers would muffle the exhaust note, it seems the boys in red have invested some time making sure that wouldn't be an issue. Not only that, but we appear to have here our first glimpse at the convertible version, expected (in accordance with traditional Ferrari nomenclature) to be dubbed the 488 GTS – that S standing for Spider instead of the B for Berlinetta. Expect a similar folding hardtop mechanism to that found on the outgoing 458 Spider. Then again, the last time the GTB handle was used on this line was with the F355, where the GTB was the coupe, GTS was the partial convertible with the removable roof panel, and the full convertible was called the F355 Spider. (The more recent, twelve-cylinder 599 GTB Fiorano only led to the limited-edition 599 SA Aperta, as Ferrari doesn't typically offer twelve-cylinder roadsters in "regular" production.)

Harry Metcalfe drives his Ferrari Testarossa in the Sahara

Take a moment to conjure some worthy answers to this question: "What can I do in a [Ferrari] Testarossa that's a really good road journey?" Then imagine yourself saying, "Tomorrow we're off to the Sahara in my Testarossa." If you were Evo magazine impresario Harry Metcalfe, those would be the kinds of Q&A sessions you'd have with yourself, and thankfully he's put the question and the answer in a fantastic 29-minute video. That answer was 2,500-mile journey out of London, on boat from Portsmouth, England, to Santander, Spain, a ferry from Tarifa, Spain, to Tangier, Morocco, a drive to Marrakech, over the snowy alpine-looking Tizi n'Tichka Pass, to Erfoud, and then to the dunes of Sahara. It involved some bribes, a twice broken-down Testarossa, confiscation of a drone, tons of speed traps and at least one ticket, a pair of lucky pants, some phenomenal scenery, and Ferrari sounds, including a long stint off-roading on a washboard track. Plus, a lot of jealousy on our part. Enjoy. News Source: Harry's Garage via YouTube Ferrari Coupe Luxury Police/Emergency Supercars Classics Videos evo harry metcalfe morocco ferrari testarossa sahara

FCA delays distribution of Ferrari shares

Even if you can't afford an actual Ferrari, soon you can own a part of the famous company thanks to its upcoming initial public offering. FCA will put 10 percent of the Prancing Horse on the market in the third quarter of this year. However to reap extra money for 2015's bottom line, the rest of the sports-car maker's stock will remain undistributed for a little longer. According to Automotive News, the strategy is quite simple to understand. FCA is holding off until the first quarter of 2016 to divvy up the remaining Ferrari stock to shareholders. By doing so, the automaker gets to claim 80 percent of the Prancing Horse's profits for its 2015 financial numbers. While FCA is already showing strong results through Q1 2015, being able to add extra cash on the balance sheet is always a plus. FCA hasn't set a specific date for the IPO, but Ferrari stock was announced to be traded in the US and possibly on a European exchange, as well. According to Automotive News, FCA currently owns 90 percent of the company, and Piero Ferrari has the remaining 10 percent, which he isn't selling. Related Video:

FIA president and former Ferrari boss Jean Todt named UN special envoy

Jean Todt, the 69-year-old former Scuderia Ferrari boss, Ferrari CEO and current FIA president has been named the United Nation's special envoy for road safety. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon announced the appointment Wednesday in Paris. Citing the 1.3 million people killed and the 50 million people injured each year on the world's roads, the UN is appointing Todt to mobilize "sustained political commitment towards road safety." Beyond that, the Frenchman will work towards raising awareness of the UN's "road safety legal instruments." "The road safety challenge is too often ignored, but road injuries are the number one killer of young people aged 15 to 29. That being the case, it deserves much more attention on the global political agenda," Todt said in the attached statement. "This appointment will bring greater visibility to efforts to tackle this health and development crisis, as well as new leadership and renewed momentum." Meanwhile, the FIA also confirmed Todt and 44 other delegates in Nepal to attend the organization's Asia-Pacific Sport Regional Congress in Kathmandu were safe after the country was struck by a devastating earthquake last week. Scroll on down for the official press release from the FIA. FIA President Jean Todt appointed as UN Special Envoy for Road Safety UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has appointed FIA President Jean Todt as his Special Envoy for Road Safety at a meeting held today in Paris. In this capacity, he will assist the UN Secretary General in mobilizing sustained political commitment towards road safety. Mr. Todt will also advocate and raise awareness about the United Nations road safety legal instruments, and share established road safety good practices, through his participations in global and regional conferences on road safety. In addition, the Special Envoy for Road Safety will generate funding for advocacy efforts through strategic partnerships between the public, private and non-governmental sectors. FIA President Jean Todt said: "The road safety challenge is too often ignored, but road injuries are the number one killer of young people aged 15-29. That being the case, it deserves much more attention on the global political agenda." adding "This appointment will bring greater visibility to efforts to tackle this health and development crisis, as well as new leadership and renewed momentum". "In my position as FIA President, with the backing of our members, road safety has become a key priority.

Ferrari launches 488 GTB configurator

Though it may not be as expensive as, say, a Pagani or Bugatti, the bottom line is that most of us will never be able to afford buying a new Ferrari. And most of those who can would probably get one already consigned to a dealer rather than wait on the list. But we can certainly dream. That's where configuration utilities come in, and Ferrari has just added the new 488 GTB to its online customization tool. The system demonstrates just how deeply customers can specify every detail on their new Prancing Horse, from the exterior paint and interior upholstery down to the tiniest detail. Ferrari's lets you choose the color of the brake calipers, the amount of carbon-fiber trim inside and out, the stitching on the leather seats, the color of the carpets and the seat belts. You can even play with the height of the sun in the sky to see how your choices would stand up to the changing light of day. Play around with it first-hand and you'll see, there's really no reason any two should ever have to roll out of Maranello alike. Related Video: