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Race Recap: Singapore Grand Prix is about a safety car and submission

The Singapore Formula One Grand Prix is the Monaco GP of the Orient - a weekend known more for its glamour and time-slot than on-track action, with a temporary circuit that punishes every mistake, usually terminally.
Lewis Hamilton in the Mercedes-AMG Petronas got the best of Free Practice 1, opening the curtain on a possible resurgence of Silver Arrows performance. By the time qualifying was done, though, it was his teammate Nico Rosberg who lined up second on the grid, followed by Romain Grosjean with a beautiful performance in the Lotus, Mark Webber in the Infiniti Red Bull, and Hamilton all the way back in fifth. Behind them were Felipe Massa outqualifying Ferrari teammate Fernando Alonso, Jenson Button getting the McLaren into eighth, Daniel Ricciardo with another good Q3 effort to get into ninth, and the shocker of Esteban Gutiérrez getting his Sauber into the top ten for the first time this year.
At the front of the pack was Sebastian Vettel. Again. But he was only ahead of Rosberg by a single tenth of a second...

Brabus 800 Roadster is a power-mad aristocrat

If we're being completely honest, we haven't exactly been in love with the aesthetics of the sixth-generation Mercedes-Benz SL-Class. It's mostly a front-end issue, with its glowering eagle-eye headlamps and upright, dinner-plate-sized Three-Pointed Star coming across to us as overwrought. That's particularly troublesome for a roadster whose history has of the most elegant designs of all time in its back catalog. Somehow, the new R231 generation's brash visuals seem more at home on this Brabus 800 Roadster to us.
That's probably because the high-dollar German tuner has turned up the wick on the SL's visuals even further, with carbon fiber bodywork, a more aggressive aero kit, matte hood scoop and complex two-finish wheels. It's all-the-way committed to its brashness, in other words - and justifiably so. Anything with 800 horsepower and 1,047 pound-feet of torque has earned the right to look however it wants, right?
Brabus started with the SL65 and its not-exactly-underpowered 6.0-liter twin-turbo V12, and went to town, fitting their own turbocharger and intercooler system, along with a less-restrictive exhaust system with driver-selectable sound levels and new engine electronics. The result is a 3.7-second 0-62 mph time, an electronically limited top whack of 217 mph... and one seriously compromised toupée.

Weekly Recap: An '80s encore in the auto world

The '80s returned in a big way this week, as National Lampoon's, Ghostbusters, Miami Vice, and even Tetris were back in the news. While there were far more serious topics (see below), nostalgia mingled with modern marketing to put these Reagan-era favorites back in the spotlight. The '80s were alternately cold and corny at times, but their cultural touchstones can still generate big money. That's why Infiniti recreated an iconic scene from National Lampoon's Vacation (1983) for an advertisement that hawks the QX60 crossover. Actor Ethan Embry, who played Rusty Griswold in a later Lampoon's movie, pilots the Infiniti – which is serving as a modern Family Truckster – for a trip to Walley World. A blonde pulls alongside in a red Lamborghini. They flirt, and she drives on. Christie Brinkley, who played the original girl in the red sports car (she drove a Ferrari in the '83 flick), is riding shotgun and chides Embry with: "A blonde. In a convertible. Seriously?" Okay, it's hardly on the level of "here's looking at you," or even "you can't handle the truth," but it should resonate with '80s babies, many of whom are now having children of their own and moving into three-row SUVs like the QX60. Naturally, Hollywood is going back to the well, too, with a Vacation remake that premiers July 29. Meanwhile, Ghostbusters is returning next year, and director Paul Feig offered a peak at the new Eco-1 in this tweet. In the 1984 classic, the team drove a modified 1959 Cadillac. Now, it will drive a late '80s Cadillac. As expected, the announcement generated support and controversy from movie and car enthusiasts. His tweet had generated several thousand retweets and favorites in the days following the news. Though the '80s Caddy looks, uh, less elegant in comparison to the now-iconic fins and curves of the original Ecto-1, it's about the same time lapse into the past as the '59 Caddy was to viewers in 1984. Speaking of 1984, Miami Vice, which debuted that year on NBC, is seeing one of its hero cars hit the auction block, Mecum Auctions announced this week. The 1986 Ferrari used on the show will be offered for sale Aug. 15 during Monterey classic car week. The white supercar runs a 390-hp flat 12-cylinder engine paired with a five-speed manual transmission and was in storage after the show ended in 1989 until earlier this year. It has 16,124 miles on the odometer and is authenticated by Ferrari North America and Classiche.