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Race recap: 2015 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix is Germany rising as sun sets

Mercedes-AMG Petronas driver Nico Rosberg Rosberg doesn't attribute anything mystical to the form that got him ahead of teammate Lewis Hamilton. He said simply, "Before it was close in the other direction, now it's close in this direction." Mercedes non-executive chairman Niki Lauda went further, saying Rosberg's "brain has switched." Under the desert spotlights it switched so far ahead that Lewis Hamilton qualified nearly four tenths behind the German. Kimi Raikkonen flew the scarlet for Ferrari in third position. Being three spots ahead of Valtteri Bottas gave Raikkonen a huge advantage in locking up fourth position in the driver's championship. Even if he doesn't care about it, as he's publicly stated, Ferrari probably does. Teammate Sebastian Vettel was classified 16th after the German slowed down after making a mistake on his final hot lap, and neither he nor his engineer realized how quickly times were falling on a cooling track. He'd be promoted to 15th when Lotus driver Romain Grosjean was penalized for a gearbox change. Sergio Perez knocked it out of the park for Sahara Force India, claiming fourth ahead of Daniel Ricciardo in fifth for Infiniti Red Bull Racing. Williams driver Bottas was in sixth, in front of the second Force India of Nico Hulkenberg and the second Williams of Felipe Massa in eighth. Daniil Kvyat ensured both Red Bulls were in the top 10 with his ninth position, and Carlos Sainz got the upper hand in qualifying over his Toro Rosso teammate Max Verstappen for the final time this year, rounding out the top 10. Beyond Nico Rosberg's mind, one of his weaknesses was his slow starts. Those are stronger, too, the German tearing off away from the field when the lights went out. Hamilton bogged enough to have to defend from Perez behind, the Mexican trying to slide between Hamilton and Raikkonen on the run to the first corner. Rosberg held the lead into Turn 1 and likewise held it through Turn 21 on the last lap of the race, only ceding it during pit stops. Rosberg's 14th victory gets him level with Graham Hill on the wins list – on the anniversary of Hill's death in a plane crash – and marks the first time in his 10-year F1 career that he's won three races in a row. More proof of his strength: the last few races we haven't heard Rosberg ask for regular updates about what Hamilton's doing, he just drives. Hamilton gave it his best but that wasn't enough.

Ferrari 488 GTB among the best car designs of 2016 [UPDATE]

Can't decide whether the Ferrari 488 GTB looks better than the 458 Italia it replaces? A design jury has make up its mind. The 2016 Red Dot design awards are being announced today, and Maranello's latest eight-cylinder, mid-engined supercar won top honors. The Red Dot Awards for Product Design recognize the best new products on the market across an array of categories and industries, including automobiles. This year's panel of 41 experts, including Chris Bangle and Ken Okuyama, evaluated some 5,200 designs. From those, they selected 1,304 for a Red Dot award, and only 79 as the "Best of the Best" – among them the new Ferrari. This is the second year in a row the Prancing Horse marque has been awarded the honor, having been earned an award for the FXX K last year. A full list of this year's honorees isn't yet available, and it's uncertain that other automakers will earn awards. Last year's list also included the Mazda MX-5, Mercedes-AMG GT, and Volvo XC90. The Peugeot 308 SW, if you can believe it, was the only car awarded Best of the Best in 2014, the Audi R8 in 2013, and the Renault Twizy in 2012. UPDATE: The Red Dot organization has released the full list of this year's product design honorees, with the McLaren 570S and Kia Optima also awarded among the Best of the Best. Red Dots were also awarded to the Audi A4, R8, and Q7, BMW 7 Series, M2, and X1, Fiat Toro, Hyundai Ioniq, Kia Sportage, Mercedes C-Class, Skoda Superb Estate, and Volvo S90. The jurists also gave Honorable Mentions to the Borgward BX 7, Genesis G90, Mini Clubman, Qoros 3 City SUV, and Smart Fortwo Cabriolet. The 488 GTB wins the Red Dot award The V8 sports car named "Best of the Best" Maranello, 30 March 2016 – The 488 GTB has won the Red Dot Best of the Best award for its design and innovative lines. This is the latest in string of plaudits garnered by the Ferrari Style Centre which also picked up several IF Design Awards in Munich, Germany, at the start of the month. On the latter occasion, the big winner was the FXX K (Red Dot Best of the Best 2015) which took home the Gold Award, the Hannover institute's top prize. However, the 488 GTB and 488 Spider also scored a double whammy at the same event with a Design Excellence Award apiece.

McLaren's baby P13 coming next year with multiple bodystyles, $160K sticker price

Though you could hardly call it "cheap" by most standards, when McLaren Automotive booted up with the launch of the MP4-12C three years ago, it was, relatively speaking, the most affordable McLaren yet. Cheaper than the original McLaren F1, cheaper than the SLR it made for Mercedes-Benz, and certainly cheaper than any of the racing machinery for which the firm is known. From there, however, things only got more expensive. The 12C Spider arrived with a higher list price than the coupe, the P1 that much more so, and the 650S slots in between the two. As we reported last week, there's a new flagship codenamed P15 in the works that will be less expensive than the P1, but still significantly more than the 12C or 650S. So when will McLaren offer something a little bit more obtainable? That's the next project in the pipeline. Following the internal nomenclature that dubbed the 12C as P11, the 650S as P11M, P1 as P12 and the aforementioned upcoming flagship as P15, the forthcoming "baby McLaren" is known around Woking as the P13. (Which only makes us wonder what the P14 might be, but that's a question for another time.) What we'll be looking at with the P13 (whatever it will be called once it reaches production) is a two-door supercar based on the same carbon Monocell that underpins the rest of the McLaren lineup but will not, contrary to what Car and Driver predicts, be substantially smaller than the 12C. What it will be is cheaper – at least, relatively speaking, that is. In correspondence with Autoblog, McLaren communications chief Wayne Bruce confirms that the P13 will carry a sticker price starting "from around two thirds of what a 12C would cost you today." That would place it around $160,000 (less than what C/D forecasts) and square between the latest Porsche 911 Turbo and Turbo S or the V10 and V10 Plus versions of the Audi R8. "Guessing that its styling might be influenced by P1's, or indeed a 650S," we're told, "is as obvious as saying it'll have two seats." McLaren also confirms that it "will be offered in more than one bodystyle," which we'd take to mean coupe and convertible versions as are offered on the 12C and 650S, but leaves the door open to all sorts of additional possibilities in the future. We're told not to expect the P13 to debut this year, but given McLaren's cadence of revealing one new model per annum, we'd look forward to seeing it sometime in 2015.