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2015 Brazilian Grand Prix is the same as it ever was

At this point, we hope Nico Rosberg is planning to carry his current qualifying form into the 2016 season and back it up with the same kind of race-day cojones he showed winning the race in Mexico City two weeks ago. The Mercedes-AMG Petronas driver got it right enough again on Saturday afternoon to take his fifth consecutive pole position ahead of teammate Lewis Hamilton by almost a tenth of a second. It's the same one-two from Brazil last year. The bad news for the rest of the field is that the winner in Brazil the last seven years has been one of the two drivers on the front row. Last year it was the Williams duo that lined up behind Mercedes, this year it's Ferrari. Sebastian Vettel plays the stalking horse, securing third in his Ferrari ahead of teammate Kimi Raikkonen in fourth. Williams driver Valtteri Bottas actually qualified in fourth, but he had to serve a three-spot grid penalty for passing under red flags in Free Practice 2, so he started sixth. That promoted Sahara Force India driver Nico Hulkenberg up to fifth. Daniil Kvyat was the quickest representative from Infiniti Red Bull Racing, getting into seventh even with a Renault power unit that's weak on some of the key stretches at the Interlagos track. Felipe Massa had the second Williams in eighth, in front of the second Red Bull driven by Daniel Ricciardo in ninth. Toro Rosso hasn't confirmed its drivers for next year but Max Verstappen keeps making it hard to look elsewhere, taking 10th. Rosberg is working nearly the same trick he pulled last year: drive like a second driver for most of the year, drive like a world champion for the last quarter of a season. He pulled away at the start and covered Hamilton just enough on the run to the first corner to keep Hamilton on the outside. By the end of Turn 1 the German had the lead and didn't give it up for the rest of the race outside of pit stops. Without overwhelming pace to pass and unable to follow closely, Hamilton could do nothing except ask his team for a different strategy to go for the win. When Mercedes told him "No," trying to protect Rosberg's second place in the championship ahead of Vettel, that was the race. Just like last year, Rosberg and Hamilton finished one-two. Vettel, Raikkonen, Bottas, Hulkenberg, and Kvyat drove lonely races to finish in positions three through seven.

Infiniti Emerg-E Concept

The Infiniti Emerg-E is a two-place hybrid gasoline-electric concept that made its world debut at the 2012 Geneva Motor Show. While its sleek shape and stunning styling dropped jaws, those on the green side of things immediately recognized it as a reskinned and updated Lotus 414E - itself a concept based on the Evora that debuted at the same show only two years earlier. Yet there is little wrong with a reworked, Infiniti-badged Lotus boasting 402 horsepower and 738 pound-feet of torque, especially when it features a lightweight, all-aluminum bonded chassis beneath an attractive carbon fiber skin penned by the automaker's Southern California design team.
The hybrid powertrain is all contained aft of the cockpit. Primary propulsion is accomplished with two electric motors, one on each rear wheel, both featuring its own single-speed transmission (this design eliminates the need for a differential and provides electronic torque vectoring control). Energy for the electric motors is stored in a 15-kWh lithium-ion battery placed behind the seats, which is chemically different from the lithium-polymer pack Lotus used in its 414E. Auxiliary propulsion comes from a Lotus-designed, all-aluminum, 1.2-liter three-cylinder gasoline engine, rated at 50 horsepower, that serves as a range-extender after the 30-mile life of the battery pack is extinguished. Teamed with an 8.1-gallon fuel tank, the combo allows the Emerg-E to cruise about 300 miles without stopping.
Offered the chance to take the Emerg-E for a quick loop around an autocross course in Southern California, I jumped at the opportunity.

Infiniti QX70 is fini, for now

We knew it first as the FX, debuting in 2003 as a bulgingly macho SUV/crossover thing with an impossibly long hood. It was quick and powerful, and lower-slung than typical SUVs, more like a tall wagon. Infiniti later dialed the cartoonishness of it back a few notches and started calling it the QX70. Now, the QX70 is going to take a little break, disappearing from the lineup for a few years while QX50 and QX80 redesigns are rolled out. The QX70 is sporty, with a 325-horsepower 3.7-liter V6. But it's an aging model and a bit of a slow seller - last year, Infiniti moved one-seventh as many QX70s as it did its kid-hauling cousin the QX60 - which seats more people (seven, to the QX70's five) and is less expensive. The QX70 was once popular like that, selling 30,964 as the FX in 2004. But that was long, long ago. Last year it sold 6,261. The QX70 nameplate is expected to be back in 2021 or 2022, in a redesign based on the Nissan Murano and built at Nissan's plant in Canton, Miss. Related Video: Featured Gallery 2015 Infiniti QX70 Plants/Manufacturing Infiniti Crossover SUV redesign