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Race recap: 2016 Australian F1 Grand Prix a rowdy start to season

The three brief Formula 1 tests ahead of the current season belied how much had gone on since the last race in November: Infiniti subbed out for Tag Heuer, Renault is back, the all new Haas F1 team, a revamped Manor, three brand new drivers and two returning drivers, a raft of regulation changes among the newly tilled soil. The four engine manufacturers spent a combined 67 tokens among the 138 in the kitty, Renault using just seven of their 32. The only conclusive proof to come from the annual intermission was the otherworldly capability of Mercedes-AMG Petronas. The Silver Arrows didn't even try the super- and ultra-soft tires, focusing on reliability instead of speed. The result? They ran more than 19 race distances, obliterating the lap totals of every other team. There are certainly a few people who enjoyed the complicated new rolling-elimination qualifying format fast-tracked to approval just a few weeks ago. They were wildly outnumbered by those who thought it was awful, including the same team heads who voted for it. We'd probably have to go back to the debacle at the 2005 Indianapolis Grand Prix for an equivalent fiasco when Michelin pulled its teams over safety fears, leaving six cars out of 20 to qualify. In Australia, within 24 hours of the conclusion of qualifying, the new format had itself been eliminated. Nevertheless, qualifying also taught us what didn't happen over the winter: any other team progressing enough to outduel Mercedes. After admitting that he dropped off after winning the championship last year, then getting questioned in the press for some dubious off-season activities, Lewis Hamilton proved he can still turn it on when he wants to. The Brit smoked the Albert Park track in 1:23.837, more than three-tenths of a second ahead of teammate Nico Rosberg in second place. Ferrari did make strides during the off-season, but only enough to keep the same gap it had to Mercedes last year: Sebastian Vettel lined up third, a half-second behind Rosberg, teammate Kimi Raikkonen another four-tenths back in fourth place. Max Verstappen said Toro Rosso is the best of the rest, the Dutchman taking fifth place in front of Felipe Massa for Williams in sixth and Toro Rosso teammate Carlos Sainz in sixth. Daniel Ricciardo – who wasn't smiling after qualifying – kept Red Bull and its new "Tag Heuer" engines in the conversation with eighth on the grid.

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.

Mercedes C111 concept in commercial spoof A Fistful of Wolves

A Fistful of Wolves is a spoof of fashion advertising, commissioned by Mercedes-Benz to spread a cheeky word about Berlin Fashion Week. Yet, in the lampooning of sartorial gobbledygook, plenty of automotive advertising gets doused with cold water, too - like the ads that subscribe to the importance of being earnest (looking at you Matthew McConaughey and Kate Walsh), or the ones that try to convey just how unimaginably cool you'll be once you've jumped into the three-year-lease hole (looking at you, um... Mercedes-Benz and every other German luxury brand). We appreciate a brand that can make fun of itself, though. Led by Australian Justin O'Shea driving the Mercedes C111 through Berlin, it's beautiful satire as O'Shea tries to be fashion-forward while his friends go on about their daily lives, wondering why he never seems to be listening until he's offered cake, or why he's trying to walk in slow motion. Check it out in the video above. News Source: Mercedes-Benz via YouTube, Car and Driver Celebrities Humor Marketing/Advertising Mercedes-Benz Coupe Concept Cars Videos spoof