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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.

Amazing LaFerrari tribute watch more intricate than the real thing [w/video]

The Enzo had no companion watch, but its successor, the Ferrari LaFerrari, does. Created by Hublot "entirely in parallel with the car" and "alongside the Ferrari teams," the MP-05 LaFerrari tribute watch is a similar test of how much gobsmacking gadgetry can be packed into a chassis. The manually-wound watch has 11 barrels set in a spine down the center that work together to provide a 50-day power reserve. So yes, it does need to be wound, but only once every seven weeks.
Hublot says the movement, engineered in-house, has 637 components. It has more pieces than any other movement Hublot has ever designed, and it gets a tourbillon to further showcase the "demonstration of watchmaking virtuosity." The face is sapphire crystal, the case is black PVD titanium and features an open case-back, the strap is rubber with a PVD titanium buckle. Time is told via the barrels to the right of the the spine on the right - it's 10:05 on the watch above. To the left are the barrels displaying the amount of power remaining.
Hublot hasn't disclosed the price, so you know what that means. There will be 50 tribute watches made, each sent in a presentation case wrapped in Schedoni leather and carbon fibre and including the miniature power tool you need to wind the timepiece. You can read all about it in the press release below, and for true watch geeks there's also an in-depth wrists-on video of the MP-05, performed by ABlogtoWatch.com.

Ferrari to debut new twin-turbo California in the spring

Ferrari hadn't made a turbocharged engine since the F40 ended its production cycle in 1992. But that all changed when it helped Maserati develop its new 3.8-liter twin-turbo V8. That turbo engine has so far been shoehorned into the Quattroporte, along with its 3.0-liter V6 cousin that also powers the smaller Ghibli. But soon it'll wear the Prancing Horse badge as further details emerge on the next-generation California.
Set to arrive in time for the spring (likely to be unveiled at the Geneva Motor Show in March), the new California will reportedly ditch its naturally-aspirated V8 in favor of a reworked version of the Quattroporte's twin-turbo unit, which at 523 horsepower and 479 pound-feet of torque is already considerably more muscular than the current California's 483 hp and 372 lb-ft.
The new California will likely be closely based on the outgoing model, but benefit from revised aluminum sheetmetal and an updated cabin with a new infotainment system - two areas in which the current model has scored low marks.