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New BBC Top Gear season is off to a great start

The past few years have been very demanding for Top Gear fans. The Jeremy Clarkson Top Gear got too big for itself, and the core quality of the series degraded as stunts and jokes gradually became more and more stale. Things came to a head with the Fracasgate, with Clarkson punching a producer in a very nice hotel in Yorkshire with a very nice brass plaque commemorating "The End of Clarkson's BBC Career". Fast forward to a year ago, when the BBC produced a new series of Top Gear, with famed breakfast show person and shouting enthusiast Chris Evans hosting. Laden with personnel and curiously lacking any direction, the first new season collapsed onto itself with Evans eventually quitting the entire shindig. After that, viewers received a new, Amazon-produced Clarkson-Hammond-May series called The Grand Tour, which was often brilliant and just as often hampered by writing as hackneyed as the last Clarkson years of Top Gear. Now the slate is clean. Evans is gone. The first Grand Tour season has aired. The BBC has had a good long time to re-evaluate its strategy. And the first episode of this season's Top Gear has aired in the UK - and will air March 12 on BBC America. Your first extended look at all new #TopGear, coming 5 March. See you there pic.twitter.com/lYoYOtrWxR — Top Gear (@BBC_TopGear) February 23, 2017 What an improvement! It seems like the producers have taken an ax to everything not strictly necessary for making a great car show, and they've left what is absolutely crucial. There are the three car guys, Matt LeBlanc, Chris Harris and Rory Reid. There is a new studio. There is a new track car. There is a celebrity, but it's not painful to watch. There are easy jokes, there are car jokes, there are Ronin jokes. Ronin jokes! It's as if Harris, by dissecting continuity errors in the 1998 film's BMW chase, is reaching out to us fans, saying he's one of us, and he did notice the wrong wheels when the black BMW falls from the bridge. (Other mistakes are wrong-colored tach needles, for instance.) The first car film is a quality Ferrari FXX K piece, with Harris enjoying one of the 40 built track-day specials on the bankings of Daytona. It's remarkable it was Harris who was allowed to drive the exclusive Ferrari, as the first "outsider" (in his words) to drive one; years ago Harris was one of the most vocal critics of Ferrari's practices, resulting in him getting banned from driving press Ferraris. But then again, this is a customer car.

Alonso and Rossi to field Ferrari at Le Mans?

The plot thickens and just keeps thickening when it comes to Ferrari's potential return to Le Mans. Antonello Coletta, the head of Ferrari's sports car racing program, first suggested that the new regulations being implemented by the ACO could potentially see the Prancing Horse marque compete in the top-tier LMP1 class. His thoughts have since been echoed by Stefano Domenicali, the head of the Scuderia's F1 team, and by chairman Luca di Montezemolo. And now we're hearing rumors over its potential driver lineup.
Word has it that Ferrari could send Valentino Rossi and Fernando Alonso to pilot its prototype at Le Mans in 2015 or 2016. The rumors were tweeted by Mark Webber (embedded below), who recently left F1 to drive for Porsche at Le Mans - and could amount to pure speculation, to some inside track on hard news or (as is often the case) something in between. One way or another, both Rossi and Alonso are multiple world champions in their fields with strong ties to Maranello and would make a formidable lineup - particularly if paired, we'd venture, with Ferrari's test driver Marc Gené, who won at Le Mans with Peugeot in 2009.
Although the Rossi connection would seem the greater stretch, it might actually make the most sense of the two. With nothing left to prove on two wheels, the seven-time MotoGP champion has been talking about leaving the series. He's test-driven Ferrari F1 cars on several occasions and raced the Ferrari 458 Italia GT3 in the Blancpain Endurance Series last season. The move would be a rare departure for Alonso, however, who has raced almost exclusively in open-wheel single seaters his entire career, and would need to balance the program with his F1 commitments. That is, assuming he doesn't get fed up with chasing after Sebastian Vettel and teaming with Kimi Raikkonen by then.

Ferrari celebrates 70th anniversary on the 18th fairway at Pebble Beach

Ferrari is celebrating its 70th anniversary this year, so it's no surprise that the legendary Italian automaker played a large part in the 2017 Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance this past weekend in the Monterey Peninsula. Four separate classes of Ferraris were featured including Grand Touring, Competition, Major Race Winners, and One-Offs. You can view the photos from the 18th fairway in the gallery above, or scroll down below to read about some of our favorites with descriptions courtesy of the Pebble Beach Concours Car Guide. 1958 Ferrari 335 Sport Scaglietti Spyder Three Ferrari 335 Sport Spyders with V12, 4-liter engines were built in 1957 — and then Luigi Chinetti persuaded Enzo Ferrari to build one more. This Spyder (chassis 0764) was completed by Scaglietti at the end of 1958. It was first presented at the New York Auto Show and was soon nicknamed the "Super Testa Rossa." Alan Connell purchased the car and raced it at Road America, Watkins Glen, Daytona and Nassau in 1959 and 1960. Thereafter it was owned, driven and enjoyed by several different collectors, and in 1990 it was notably lent to Phil Hill to drive in the Mille Miglia Storica. The current owner acquired the Spyder in 2013. 1967 Ferrari 412 P Competizione To replace the successful Ferrari P3, the factory developed the intermediate 412 P race car — also known as the P3/4. Designed by Mauro Forghieri, the 412 P features an aluminum body that owes its shape to the Ferrari wind tunnel, and the car develops 420 bhp due to its 4-liter, V12 engine with six Weber carburetors. This 412 P (chassis 0850) was purchased by the Ecurie Nationale Belge team of Jacques Swaters, and it raced in bright yellow livery at various events in 1967 and 1968. It finished second overall at the 1,000-km Race at Montlhery in 1967, and it won the Cote de Condroz and Cote de la Roche Hill Climbs in 1968. The car was also entered in the 1967 24 Hours of Daytona when Ferraris famously finished 1-2-3. After its racing days concluded at the end of 1968, the 412 P was converted to street use for Dean Martin, Jr. and was often seen on roads around Hollywood. It is shown here at Pebble Beach for the first time since being restored to its original racing specification. 1958 Ferrari 250 Testa Rossa Scaglietta Spyder This Ferrari (chassis 0728) is one of the most famous of all Testa Rossas.