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During the Belgian GP, there was an accident of Sebastian Vettel crashing Jenson Button’s car when the time they are racing for second place and at last both of them were out of the race. On the lap 16, Vettel is still leading Button and he was trying to catch out McLaren that in his front. However, he failed when he tried to close up to McLaren and pulled out dramatically, he lost control and crash Button from the side.

“It was not what you would expect to see in F1 – more reminiscent of junior formulae. A drive-through seemed a pretty light punishment to me. I would rather he did it with his team-mates rather than do it with us,” said McLaren boss Martin Whitmarsh after the race.

Vettel said sorry for the accident, he said that the he was not intended to destroy the race. He knew that he can be beaten on the straight as his car is not the fastest on the straight. After he failed to close up the car in front, he tried to brake out but he couldn’t control the car anymore after he change from the inside to outside.

Thailand automobile exports reach record high, July figures up 140% year-on-year
On July, Thailand achieve a high record of their auto export from the Land of Smiles with total 87,605 units, which is 140% more compared to July last year. These export value worth 39.8 billion baht which is 129% year on year. If counted the total export of this year till July, there are total 505,783 units auto exported with value 235 billion baht or increased 116% year on year. It is a good result among the ASEAN.

Last month’s export success was due partly to the Customs Department’s streamlining of regulations and procedures to accommodate vehicle exports,” said spokesman Surapong Paisitpatnapong. Besides, the ASEAN Trade in Goods Agreement which started at May also help to increase the order by reducing inter-region transaction times and costs. Thailand’s mobile are mainly export to ASEAN and it occupy 24% or US$1.49 billion in the first half of the year, according to data from the Commerce Ministry.

For the domestic market in Thailand, Toyota is the first choice of the country including both pick-up and passenger car sales and occupied total 40% of the market. However, the vehicle sales stood at 422,364 units in the first seven months, leading observers to believe that a 750,000 total industry volume (TIV) for 2010 is achievable.

Very soon 2010 Formula 1 will reach the final stage of the season, however, the seven time champion, Michael Schumacher is found difficulty to get good result in the race. Schumi only gets 38 points to his name, which is less than half if compared with his teammate Nico Rosberg. With these points he may have problem to enter Q3 on Saturday. Never mind seeing him do that famous leap again, Schumi on the podium is a shock result today.

What is the problem of 41 years old Schumi? He claimed that it is because the MGP W01 car, during his interview with sponsors DVAG. Schumi believe that the teamwork, the engineer and Nico Rosberg is working well, however, the cars that they are using now are shaped, moulded and developed from last year’s car and as a driver he had to make compromises accordingly.

“The fact is that the car is not functioning in harmony, neither with the tyres nor with the drivers and obviously we must invest all the time we have in ensuring this is not the case next year.”

The next F1 race will be the Belgian GP at Spa-Francorchamps next weekend (27-29 Aug).

South Africa‘s vehicle exports stalled as a strike by members of the National Union of Metalworkers (Numsa) continued on Monday, an industry spokesman said.

“If you cannot service the market, then labels source from other places because, remember, there is spare capacity because of the recession,” Automobile Manufacturer Employers’ Organisation (Ameo) spokesman Harry Gazendam said.

“Once you lose those export markets, it is very hard to get them back.

“You can’t stockpile cars, because they take up space. Whatever stock they (local manufacturers) had is sold out,” said Gazendam. Ordinarily, the local automobile industry produced 3 000 units a day, half of which were for export.

“None of those vehicles has been built since last Wednesday,” said Gazendam.

Kok said that Toyota factories in different countries were competing with each other by bidding on contracts.

While present exports were under contract, the strike’s affect on productivity would likely be a consideration in future bidding.

Toyota’s output of 220 000 vehicles a year was aligned for exports as the domestic market could not absorb that many vehicles. Losing export contracts would have an adverse impact on the company.

The union said that employers were sticking to an offer of a 7% increase.

People used to form some groups or bodies to protect the rights of some parties. Examples, regulatory bodies such as the FIA and Formula 1 union named Formula One Team Association (FOTA) and Grand Prix Drivers Association. Recently the team sponsors also formed an organisation called Formula 100 (F100) which used to publish their views as team sponsors.

F100 is formed by 100 members including top individuals and sponsors that support the teams and very soon, these people will have their first meeting on 1st September at the Waldorf Hilton in London. You also can see some big name there such as Richard Bracewell, GM of global sponsorship Shell, Chris Burton, VP of global Sponsorship at SAP and former F1 commentator James Allen who will will chair a panel discussion on that day.

Diring this meeting, no agency repsentative or media present are invited excepted a high powered audience. The content of this meeting will be discussion of important current issues and the minutes will be reported to F1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone.

“F100 is a great concept and will allow the sponsors to both learn from each other as well as propose change for the good of the sport. The calibre of members and quality of the panellists have to be taken seriously,” said Allen.

Are you fans of Fast & the Furious?  If yes, there will be good news for you. Why? The Fast and The Furious 5 movie, which may be called ‘Fast Five’ confirmed will be filmed to talk about the glitz of the underground racing scene. The movie is reportedly being shot in Puerto Rico and Brazil. Besides the previous starring racer, Vin Diesel, Paul Walker, Tyrese, and Sung Kang (Han), Dwayne Johnson (The Rock) will also join the movie.

When talk about Fast and Furious, this will remind us on the cars. Firstly people would like to see the Dodge Charger in the first film, next up is a firm favourite among tuners, which was the Nissan Skyline GT-R a vast in most of the four films. Let us not also forget the beautifully kitted out Mazda RX-7 of Han in the movie Tokyo Drift. Han goes up in a ball of smoke along with his beautiful car.

Do you have any other cars in your mind?

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The world has its fair share of dangerous roads but some are more notorious than others when it comes to striking fear into the hearts of those who have driven them; with locals even labeling them with such names as “Road of Death” and the “Devils Backbone”.

A new breed of adventure tourist – intent on finding and traveling down a selection of the most dangerous roads the world has to offer – travels every year to search for adrenaline fueled twists, dizzying heights and peril awaiting them at every corner.

Follow below for the worlds top 10 list in descending order of peril:

1: North Jungas Road (“The Road of Death”); Certainly deserving of being labeled “the most dangerous” road in the world, a dizzying high altitude 61km stretch of perilous road with no guard rails to offer safety from the surrounding 2000ft drops waiting to claim the unwitting tourist.

2: Sichuan Highway; A road with rock and landslides a plenty along its 2412km long stretch, winding through incredibly scenic landscape and crossing some of the worlds most well-known rivers. Beautiful it may be but very deadly having claimed the lives of many thousands of Chinese people between 1985 and today.

3: Russia’s Highway from Hell (Lena Highway); In one of the coldest civilized parts of the world – with temperatures often achieving record breaking lows – a treacherous enough stretch in winter but an absolute mud bath in summer when traffic jams numbering into the thousands renders travel impossible. Crime is rife during this period with kidnapping and robbery not uncommon.

4: Guoliang Tunnel Road; literally hewn from the cliff face, this road is certainly an engineering feat for the Taihing mountain tribe who built it during the latter part of last century (and responsible for many fatalities in the process). Scenic views await but so does peril for the incautious driver due to the solid stone walls and sheer drops awaiting you should your attention wander too much to the marvelous scenery.

5: James Dalton Highway; made popular by the “Ice Road Truckers” TV series, an extremely dangerous and remote road with danger lurking at every turn. Hazards include rocks flung into your windscreen by passing trucks and an extremely slippery & pothole filled road surface. Cars with poor or new suspension can be seriously damaged and this drive should not be attempted by the faint hearted or those without plenty of supplies and extra fuel should the unfortunate happen.

6: Halsema Highway; A treacherous 241km stretch of road with mudslides and rock-falls an all too common occurrence. With drops of up to 1000ft and not much in the way of guardrails, overturning your vehicle – or worse – is quite possible, especially during the wet season when the road becomes virtually impassable.

7: Van Zyl’s Pass; More of a dirt track created by the frequent traveling of vehicles along the route, but certainly a deserving contender for this list. An extremely steep trail with boulders and rocks strewn across the path as if flung there to await the unlucky, inexperienced driver; the surrounding ravines make mistakes here unforgiving but the journey is worth it to experience the spectacular views of the Marienfluss Valley (carved by a glacier in the last ice-age) from the top of the pass.

8: Karakoram Highway; Sometimes labeled as the 9th wonder of the world, this engineering wonder spans 1300km in length and connects China and Pakistan with what is the highest paved road in the world. An unfortunate 892 workers died during its construction (mainly on the longer Pakistani side) and it remains perilous today with landslides a regular occurrence. The most recent of which, in fact, created the new Attabad Lake (22km in length & over 100 meters in depth) and caused a closure of a stretch of the road in the Hunza valley.

9: Leh-Manali Highway; looping through some of the highest mountain passes in the world (at between 2-3 miles above sea level), this 478km stretch of perilous road has danger awaiting the unsuspecting traveler at every corner, with snowstorms and landslides common. Not one to be attempted by the inexperienced driver due to the lack of guard rails and need for a well driven 4 wheel drive vehicle.

10: The Devils Backbone (Mex 40); Narrow, tight curves and open sheer drops await the unfortunate here. Trucks often take up the full width of the road on corners leaving little or no room for the opposing traffic. All the hazards are well signed, making it much safer than other contenders on this list, but still a road to be taken very seriously.

What do you think about Michael Schumacher’s performance since he came back from his retirement? Sir Jackie Stewart, who retired in 1973 as a triple world champion, said that it is a mistake to come back since he already achieved everything during his golden age with seven times world champion before retirement.

Compared to the old time, now Schumi had joined Silver Arrows and competing with other young players such as Sebastian Vettel and Lewis Hamilton. From the result so far, Schumi can’t even chase up his teammate, Nico Rosberg. Besides, that is some questions that Schumacher can improve in 2011? And will he do another year? Sir Jackie Stewart believed that he will stop after this season. However, there is news that German is aiming the next year’s champion.

At last weekend’s British GP, Schumacher finished ninth while Rosberg got on the podium. He also qualified eight tenths behind Nico. The younger German has 90 points so far, more than his 41-year-old compatriot’s 36 points.

Mark Webber haswon his third win of the season at the 2010 British GP. Webber’s victory came after using a chassis that is older than what Vettel was using and after the “front wing” fiasco where Webber was forced to use an older front wing during yesterday’s qualifying session. Both Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso and Felipe Massa finished in 14th and 15th respectively and failed to score any points for their team.

The result of top 10 of of British GP are:
First place, Red Bull’s Mark Webber; second place, Lewis Hamilton; third place, Mercedes’ Nico Rosberg; fourth place, McLaren’s Jenson Button; fifth place, Williams ‘s Veteran Rubens Barrichello; sixth place, Sauber ‘s Kamui Kobayashi; and 7th place onward are followed by Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel, Force India’s Adrian Sutil, Mercedes’ Michael Schumacher who stood in the shadows of his team mate yet again and lastly Williams’ Nico Hulkenberg.

Overall, McLaren still leading the Constructor’s Championship with 278 points and Red Bull is catching up behind with 249 points. Third and fourth place are Ferrari and Mercedes with 165 and 126 points respectively which are quite a big gap to reach Red Bull. While, Hamilton is leading the Driver’s Championship with 145 points, followed by Button (133 points), Webber (128 points) and Vettel (121 points).

After a couple of weeks, Season 1 of the Driven automotive television show near to end and this event gave out some prizes for the contest of The Double Barrel Hunt and also selected guests can have a chance to take rides in a race-prepped Lotus 2-Eleven courtesy of Empire Motorsports. Besides, participants also given the chance to try out some new models including BMW X1 xDrive20d, which just launched recently , and the F10 BMW 523i as well as the sporty BMW 325i, the diesel-fueled BMW 320d and the high-performance turbocharged BMW 135i which produces 306 PS and 400Nm of torque. These might be dream cars of everyone.

Another activity on the track day is experiencing to drive on the Sepang tracks. The BMW Z4 sDrive35i was used as the Driven Pace Car, and participants were allowed to drive the cars for an average of 5 laps each around the North Track of the circuit. They also got the chance to get up-close and personal with Hypertune Models, who came along with two Hypertune Project Cars including a tuned-up Honda Civic Type R and a Toyota Corolla Levin.

Mohd Fahmi bin Ismail is the lucky one as the winner of The Double Barrel Hunt’s Grand Prize winner, and he won an RM5000 fuel voucher from BHPetrol, a Nokia N97 Mini and an Ultra Glass Coating Neo full car treatment.