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For his last act, Marchionne will outline an EV/hybrid roadmap this week

MILAN/LONDON — Fiat Chrysler (FCA) boss Sergio Marchionne is expected to outline new plans for electric and hybrid cars in a strategy presentation on Friday, aiming to ensure the world's seventh-largest carmaker remains in the race in the absence of a merger. The 65-year-old will present FCA's strategy to 2022, his final contribution to the company he turned around and multiplied in value through 14 years of canny dealmaking. After failing to secure a tie-up he said was necessary to manage the costs of producing cleaner vehicles, Marchionne needs to show the group can keep churning out profits on its own, even as emissions rules tighten, SUV competition intensifies and worries around his succession abound. Marchionne had long refused to jump on the electrification bandwagon, saying he would only do so if selling battery-powered cars could be done at a profit. He even urged customers not to buy FCA's Fiat 500e, its only battery-powered model, because he was losing money on each sold. But Tesla's success and the need to comply with tougher emissions rules have forced Marchionne to commit to what he calls "most painful" spending. "FCA is way behind rivals in terms of hybrid and electric vehicles and they need to hit the accelerator to convince investors they can close that gap," said Andrea Pastorelli, a fund manager at 8a+ Investimenti. Germany's Volkswagen, Daimler, BMW and U.S. rivals GM and Ford have committed to spending billions of euros each in coming years to try produce profitable cars powered by cleaner fuels. FCA needs to present a clear roadmap, just like Volvo Cars, which ditched diesel from its best-selling XC60 SUV, launched a new electric brand and pledged to shift all brands to hybrid by 2019, a banking source close to FCA said, noting: "The tech divide determines winners and losers in the industry." Marchionne has already said half of the wider FCA fleet will incorporate some elements of electrification by 2022, while luxury marque Maserati will spearhead FCA's electrification drive by making all new models due after 2019 electric. But its plans remain vaguer and less advanced than most big rivals and some investors wonder about the capital required to make vehicles compliant, and what share of spending can go to electrification given FCA's numerous demands.

Ferrari's Charles Leclerc takes third straight pole at Singapore GP

SINGAPORE — Ferrari driver Charles Leclerc claimed a third straight Formula One pole position on Saturday after outpacing championship leader Lewis Hamilton in qualifying for the Singapore Grand Prix. Leclerc clocked a lap of 1 minute, 36.217 seconds at the 5-kilometer (3.1-mile) Marina Bay street circuit, beating Hamilton by 0.191 seconds. Leclerc's teammate Sebastian Vettel was third. "If you look at the lap, it was a good lap, but there were some moments that I lost control," Leclerc said. "We brought some new bits that worked properly, which was good to see. I had a very tough Friday and didn't feel comfortable in the car, but we worked hard and it paid off." Leclerc has won the previous two races. After his first-ever F1 victory in Spa at the Belgian GP, the 21-year-old Leclerc became the first Ferrari driver to win the Italian GP since Fernando Alonso in 2010. Hamilton holds a 63-point lead over Mercedes teammate Valtteri Bottas with seven races remaining. "I don't know where Ferrari picked up their pace, it's not usually one of their circuits," Hamilton said. "But they did a great job, Charles did some great laps. Hopefully we can be in the mix with them tomorrow. I think we can be aggressive." While Hamilton already has eight wins this season, his last came at the Hungarian GP in early August. Pole position in Singapore is crucial as its one of the hardest tracks for overtaking in F1. The driver leading the field has won eight times in the past 11 years. Hamilton has won in Singapore the past two years. Another victory in Sunday's night race would move the Briton a step closer to his third straight championship and sixth overall, one shy of Michael Schumacher's record of seven titles. Vettel, whose contract ends in 2020, is on a 13-month winless streak. His last victory was at the 2018 Belgian Grand Prix. Vettel and Hamilton are the only two drivers on the grid with victories at Singapore — with four wins each. Red Bull's Max Verstappen was fourth, almost four-tenths behind Vettel. Bottas was fifth for Mercedes ahead of Red Bull's Alex Albon. Carlos Sainz Jr. took seventh place for McLaren in front of the Renault of Daniel Ricciardo. Nico Hulkenberg was ninth in the second Renault with McLaren's Lando Norris rounding out the top 10. Motorsports Ferrari Lewis Hamilton Sebastian Vettel singapore grand prix charles leclerc

Ecclestone wonders if F1's upcoming turbo V6s should get augmented sound [w/videos]

While every team on the Formula One grid is worried about making a good showing in this year's championship at the same time as they develop a brand-new car for next year's championship, Bernie Ecclestone and F1 circuit promoters have a different concern: how next year's cars will sound. The current cars use 2.4-liter, naturally-aspirated V8s that can reach 18,000 revolutions per minute and employ dual exhaust, next year's engine formula calls for 1.4-liter turbocharged V6s that are capped at 15,000 rpm and are constrained to a single exhaust outlet. Ecclestone and promoters like Ron Walker believe the new engines sound like lawnmowers and that the less thrilling audio will keep people from coming to races. If Walker's Australian Grand Prix really is shelling out almost $57 million to hold the race, every ticket counts. As a fix, according to a report in Autoweek, Ecclestone "suggests that the only way to guarantee [a good sound] may be to artificially adjust the tone of the V6s."
However, neither the manufacturers nor the governing body of F1, the FIA, think there will be a problem. Ecclestone fears that if the manufacturers "don't get it right" they'll simply leave the sport, but the only three carmakers and engine builders left next year, Renault (its 2014 "power unit" is pictured), Mercedes-Benz and Ferrari are so embedded that it would stretch belief to think they'd leave the table over an audio hiccup - if said hiccup even occurs. And frankly, these issues always precede changes to engine formulas, as they did when the formula switched from V10 to V8; fans, though, are probably less focused on the engines and more on the mandated standardization of the sport and the spec-series overtones that have come with it.
No one knows yet what next year's engines will sound like, but we've assembled a few videos below to help us all start guessing. The first is an engine check on an Eighties-era John Player Special Renault with a 1.5-liter V6 turbo, after that is Ayrton Senna qualifying in 1986 in the Lotus 98T that also had a 1.5-liter V6 turbo, then you'll find a short with a manufactured range of potential V6 engine notes, and then the sound of turbocharged V6 Indycars testing last year at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Any, or none of them, could be Formula One's future.