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Lewis Hamilton wins British GP, slashes Vettel's lead to 1 point

SILVERSTONE, England - Lewis Hamilton won his home British Grand Prix for the fourth year in a row on Sunday, while a penultimate-lap puncture slashed Sebastian Vettel's championship lead to a single point. The Briton's drive from pole to flag on an overcast afternoon was lonely, uneventful and dominant - in complete contrast to his Ferrari rival's afternoon - with Mercedes teammate Valtteri Bottas finishing 14 seconds behind to secure the one-two. "The support has been incredible this weekend. I am so proud I could do this for you all," said Hamilton, who threw himself into the fans for some crowd surfing after the podium celebrations. "The team were faultless this weekend, Valtteri did an incredible job as well, so it's the perfect weekend for us." Far behind in his wake, as Hamilton cruised to a 57th career win and soaked up the applause from an army of flag-waving fans, came sudden drama. Vettel, who had battled on worn tires but looked like securing the final podium position until the blowout, finished seventh after an emergency pit stop with a shower of sparks from the wheel rim. "There was no sign of that happening," said Vettel over the team radio. "There were vibrations but I had it for 20 laps and it didn't get massively worse. The tires didn't look great but they never look great." The German's Finnish teammate Kimi Raikkonen, who had been second before also being hit with a late puncture that sent Bottas and Vettel ahead of him, took third. At the halfway stage of the 20-race season, Vettel has 177 points to Hamilton's 176 with Bottas on 154. Hungary, a circuit where the Briton has won five times before, is next up. Hamilton became only the third driver, after his late compatriot Jim Clark and Frenchman Alain Prost, to win the British Grand Prix five times and the first to take four successive victories at Silverstone. Clark won four in a row in the 1960s, but one was at Aintree and another at Brands Hatch. Red Bull's Max Verstappen finished fourth, ending a run of retirements, with Australian teammate Daniel Ricciardo fifth after fighting through the field. Germany's Nico Hulkenberg was sixth for Renault and Force India pairing Esteban Ocon and Sergio Perez were eighth and ninth with Brazilian Felipe Massa securing the final point for Williams. Jolyon Palmer's miserable run continued, with Britain's only other driver on the grid failing to make the start after his Renault broke down on the formation lap with a brake failure.

A car writer's year in new vehicles [w/video]

Christmas is only a week away. The New Year is just around the corner. As 2014 draws to a close, I'm not the only one taking stock of the year that's we're almost shut of. Depending on who you are or what you do, the end of the year can bring to mind tax bills, school semesters or scheduling dental appointments. For me, for the last eight or nine years, at least a small part of this transitory time is occupied with recalling the cars I've driven over the preceding 12 months. Since I started writing about and reviewing cars in 2006, I've done an uneven job of tracking every vehicle I've been in, each year. Last year I made a resolution to be better about it, and the result is a spreadsheet with model names, dates, notes and some basic facts and figures. Armed with this basic data and a yen for year-end stories, I figured it would be interesting to parse the figures and quantify my year in cars in a way I'd never done before. The results are, well, they're a little bizarre, honestly. And I think they'll affect how I approach this gig in 2015. {C} My tally for the year is 68 cars, as of this writing. Before the calendar flips to 2015 it'll be as high as 73. Let me give you a tiny bit of background about how automotive journalists typically get cars to test. There are basically two pools of vehicles I drive on a regular basis: media fleet vehicles and those available on "first drive" programs. The latter group is pretty self-explanatory. Journalists are gathered in one location (sometimes local, sometimes far-flung) with a new model(s), there's usually a day of driving, then we report back to you with our impressions. Media fleet vehicles are different. These are distributed to publications and individual journalists far and wide, and the test period goes from a few days to a week or more. Whereas first drives almost always result in a piece of review content, fleet loans only sometimes do. Other times they serve to give context about brands, segments, technology and the like, to editors and writers. So, adding up the loans I've had out of the press fleet and things I've driven at events, my tally for the year is 68 cars, as of this writing. Before the calendar flips to 2015, it'll be as high as 73. At one of the buff books like Car and Driver or Motor Trend, reviewers might rotate through five cars a week, or more. I know that number sounds high, but as best I can tell, it's pretty average for the full-time professionals in this business.

Daimler wants to cut EV research spending as it preps EQ

Daimler AG is hoping that the legwork it's done preparing its EQ electric-vehicle sub-brand will allow it to slightly reduce annual spending on plug-in vehicle technology. The Mercedes-Benz parent is looking to cut electric-vehicle research-and-development spending to $13.2 billion in 2017 from about $15.4 billion this year, Bloomberg News says, citing comments Daimler CEO Dieter Zetsche made to journalists in Hamburg, Germany, this week. Daimler's annual R&D spending is up from about $11.5 billion in both 2013 and 2014. Like its competitors – for example Audi and BMW and its i sub-brand – Daimler is aiming to have as much as 25 percent of its annual vehicle sales be battery-electric within the next 10 years as part of an effort to meet stricter greenhouse-gas emissions mandates in both Europe and North America. In fact, Mercedes-Benz and Daimler's Smart division collectively have at least 10 electric-vehicle models on their slates during the next few years, though Zetsche said the German automaker will continue to find ways to make its gas- and diesel-powered vehicles more fuel-efficient as well. Daimler introduced a concept version of the Generation EQ electric SUV at the Paris Motor Show late last month. It comes powered by two electric motors and is made up of a combination of steel, aluminum, and carbon fiber, and boasts a 311-mile single-charge range (on the relatively lenient European testing standards). The SUV also has 402 horsepower, and the ability to go from 0 to 60 miles per hour in less than five seconds. Zetsche said at the time that Daimler was prepping powertrains and platforms for electric sedans, wagons, coupes, and roadsters, in addition to SUVs. Additionally, Daimler's Deutsche Accumotive unit is producing the lithium-ion battery packs for the EQs. Featured Gallery Mercedes-Benz Generation EQ Concept: Paris 2016 View 19 Photos News Source: Bloomberg News via Automotive News-sub.req. Green Mercedes-Benz smart Electric eq mercedes eq