• F1 car manufacturers criticise FIA president
• Mosley calls FIA EGA
• Call for 20 race F1 limit
• Apex Motorsport to continue
• Motorsport aerodynamics to be discussed at SAE Congress
• MIA Media Day 2008
• New rapid prototyping material has motorsport applications

• Calls for FIA president to step down
• Motorsport personnel perish in UK air crash
• Headline sponsor for IRL series
• Richards delivers keynote speech at Bahrain Motorsport Business Forum
• F1 helped UK cycling team success
• UK motorsport composites company unveils new technology
• Xtrac confirms Brazilian deal

• EC launches consultation on ‘integrated approach’ to 10g/km tailpipe emissions reduction
• Dutch agency calls on EU to reconsider 2020 10% renewable transport fuels obligation target
• CARB passes new ZEV mandate amendment

Four of the car manufacturers involved in the Formula One World Championship have issued statements that criticising FIA president Max Mosley following allegations published about him in a UK tabloid newspaper.

The German manufacturers BMW and Mercedes-Benz issued a joint statement that said, "The content of the publications is disgraceful. As a company, we strongly distance ourselves from it.

"This incident concerns Max Mosley both personally and as President of the FIA, the global umbrella organisation for motoring clubs. Its consequences therefore extend far beyond the motor sport industry. We await a response from the relevant FIA bodies."

A statement issued on behalf of Honda Racing said, "It is necessary that senior figures in sport and business maintain the highest standards of conduct in order to fulfil their duties with integrity and respect.

"The Honda Racing F1 Team is extremely disappointed by recent events surrounding Mr Mosley and we are concerned that the reputation of Formula One and all its participants is being damaged.

"We request that the FIA gives this matter careful consideration and reaches an immediate decision in the best interests of F1 and Motorsport."

A statement by Toyota Motorsport said, "Toyota Motorsport does not approve of any behaviour which could be seen to damage Formula One's image, in particular any behaviour which could be understood to be racist or anti-Semitic.

“Senior figures within any sport or business, including motorsport, must adhere to high standards of behaviour. When all the facts are known, it will be for the FIA to decide whether Mr Mosley has met the moral obligations which come with the position of FIA President."

Mosley has written a letter to the FIA apologising for any embarrassment caused by the allegations that were published in the News of the World and signalled his intention to continue in his role with the governing body of international motorsport.

An Extraordinary General Assembly of the FIA has been called by the organisation’s president Max Mosley in order to discuss the impact of allegations published about him in a UK tabloid newspaper.

A statement issued by the FIA on Thursday said, "The full membership of the FIA will be invited to attend the meeting at which the widespread publicity following an apparently illegal invasion of the FIA President's privacy will be discussed.

"The FIA has noted that Mr Mosley is preparing legal proceedings against the newspaper in question.

"It is anticipated that the meeting will take place in Paris. It will be held on the earliest practicable date. No further comments will be made by the FIA regarding the matter at this stage."

In a speech to delegates at the Motor Sport Business Forum that took place in Bahrain ahead of this coming weekend’s Formula One Bahrain Grand Prix Ron Dennis, the team principal of the Woking, based McLaren F1 team, called for a 20 race limit for future F1 World Championships.

Lauding moves to bring Formula One into new markets such as Russia, India, South Korea, Abu Dhabi and Qatar, Dennis said, "I welcome this expansion, and heartily commend Bernie Ecclestone for spearheading it, but I have two provisos: Firstly, that the season never expands to more than 20 grands prix, which I regard as a natural logistical limit and, secondly, that we preserve a closed season over the winter.

"The closed season is essential not only for logistical reasons but also in order to stir up a sense of anticipation in the hearts and minds of F1 fans. The best-selling editions of Formula One magazines are always the season preview editions, for example, not the editions that are published during the season.

"And that's because a sense of anticipation has been stirred up in the hearts and minds of Formula One fans over the preceding winter. So, as I say, we must preserve that."

The Milton Keynes, UK based Apex Motorsport team has confirmed that it will continue with its programme to race GT3 versions of the Jaguar XKR in the 2008 FIA GT Championship despite the deaths of team principal Richard Lloyd, driver David Leslie, and data engineer Chris Allarton in an aircraft accident last Sunday.

Team owner Harry Handkammer said, "While our first thoughts are with their families, we know that motor racing never stops, and that Richard and David would not have wanted it to stop

"Apex will forge ahead with the Jaguar XKR GT3 programme and our entries in the FIA GT3 Championship. Before we were racing to win, now we will be racing with an added purpose - in memory of Richard, David, and Chris."

Next week’s 2008 Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) World Congress in Detroit, USA will include the presentation of several papers on motorsport aerodynamics.

The presentations, which will take place on April 16, are ‘Aerodynamics of High-Lift Wings with Ground Effect for Racecars’ by Wael Mokhtar of Lake Superior State University; ‘The Aerodynamic Characteristics of a Race Car Wing Operating in a Wake’ by Michael Wilson, Robert Dominy and Adam Straker of the UK’s Durham University; ‘CFD Simulation of NASCAR Racing Car Aerodynamics’ by Rajneesh Singh of General Motors; and ‘The Influence of Motion Aerodynamics on the Simulation of Vehicle Dynamics’ by Peter Aschwanden & Juerg Mueller of RUAG Aerospace and Gian Claudio Travaglio and Timo Schoening of GTV Fahrzeugdynamik GmbH in Germany.

The paper presentations will be followed by an oral presentation titled ‘Overview of the SAE Motorsports Engineering Conference and The Aerodynamic Challenge’ by Thomas Ramsay of Honda R&D Americas Inc and Bob Welge of Robert's Engineering Development.

The 2008 SAE World Congress takes place at the Cobo Center in Detroit, Michigan on April 14-17.

The UK’s Motorsport Industry Association is to hold its second Media Day in association with the Guild of Motoring Writers at the Rockingham Motor Speedway, Corby, Northants on July 8.

In addition to the MIA member company exhibits, opportunities for one-to-one interviews with the industry's top executives and use of the oval circuit for the appraisal and demonstration of road and competition cars, there will be activity on a specially-created road course and a new feature, the EU-wide safety campaign urging drivers to 'Choose ESC': a partnership between Rockingham, BOSCH, RoadSafe and the Department of Transport using the state-of–the–art wet grip area. The day is also expected to include a number of major product and niche car launches are expected on the day.

Prior to the event the MIA is hosting a members' Media Workshop (provisional date – May 27) to help them get the best from the event. This will comprise presentations by motorsport PR and media experts and will aim to explain precisely what the media look for in the way of stories and how to create and distribute them in the required way.

The MIA's event organiser Katie-Anne Ray said, "Some motorsport media find members of our industry rather inaccessible. Conversely, some of our members readily admit they are not well versed in communicating with the press, even when they have something important to say. Our Workshop and Media Day seek to break down these barriers and get the two sides working more efficiently together, to mutual benefit.

All members of the media are welcome and invited to register their interest by e-mailing

The American 3D Systems Corporation, based in Rock Hill, South Carolina which supplies 3-D modelling, rapid prototyping and manufacturing solutions to a number of sectors including the motorsport industry, has launched its new Accura Greystone Material, a new engineered nanocomposite material for its Stereolithography (SLA) systems.

The new material which is designed for motorsport and aerospace applications, is claimed to provide exceptional accuracy, stiffness, thermal performance as well as long-term stability in uses such as high pressure wind-tunnel testing and other uses requiring high thermal resistance including insulating electrical components.

Abe Reichental, 3D Systems president and chief executive officer said, "Accura Greystone Material is our latest breakthrough in material science and technology as we continue to emphasize the importance of engineered materials and composites to our business. We believe that it takes breakthrough materials like Accura Greystone to push and expand the end-use applications' envelope and broaden the adoption of additive manufacturing technology into the mainstream of automotive and aerospace design, development and manufacturing.”

A number of calls have been made for Max Mosley to step down from his role as the president of the FIA following the publication of a story in the UK’s News of the World newspaper which alleged that Mosley had taken part in a Nazi-themed ‘sadomasochistic orgy' with five prostitutes.

Speaking to the UK’s Guardian newspaper former world drivers champion Jody Scheckter said, "There is absolutely no question in my mind that Mosley should resign. From a purely motor racing point of view you can't have somebody like this running the sport or any other sport come to that. I really think he ought to go and I would like to see the press having a concerted campaign to persuade him to do just that."

Stephen Smith, director of the Holocaust Centre, said, “As Mr Mosley has condemned the racism in motor sport he should live up to the standards he sets. This is an insult to millions of victims, survivors and their families. He should apologise. He should resign from the sport.”

At the time this was written the FIA had made no comment on whether or not Mosley would remain as its president.

Former British Touring Car Championship driver David Leslie, racing team owner Richard Lloyd and motorsport data engineer Christopher Allarton were among five people killed when a private aircraft crashed in Kent last Sunday.

The three were on their way to the Nogaro race circuit in southern France were Leslie was scheduled to drive a Jaguar XKR GT3 racecar built by Lloyd’s Milton Keynes, UK based Apex Motorsport team in an FIA performance equalisation test on Monday.

Although he was best known as a BTCC driver Leslie also enjoyed extensive success in single-seaters, including winning the UK Formula Atlantic Championship in 1980, and in sportscar racing including competing at Le Mans for teams including Aston Martin Racing, Ecurie Ecosse and TWR Jaguar. More recently Leslie had also worked as television motorsport commentator and a motorsport lecturer.

Lloyd was an accomplished racing driver in his own right before running successful sportscar and touring car racing teams. He was a key figure in Audi’s victory in the 1996 British Touring Car Championship and in 2003 his Apex Motorsport organisation ran the Team Bentley operation that scored the marques first win at Le Mans since 1930.

Allarton had recently taken up a new job with Apex Motorsport after graduating from university.

The US based Indy Racing League’s IndyCar Series, which was recently merged with the rival Champ Car World Series, has confirmed a major multi-year sponsorship deal with the soft drinks company Coca-Cola.

Commenting on the deal Terry Angstadt the president of the IRL’s commercial division said, "Coca-Cola is truly a global brand, and we're thrilled to have them on board with the IndyCar Series.

"Coca-Cola's enormous brand recognition and marketing capabilities create some very exciting activation opportunities as we go forward. This announcement also adds to the sponsorship momentum that we've been building over the last several months.

"The growing number of partnerships we're making with quality organizations like Coca-Cola and others is really helping to build an exciting future for the IndyCar Series."

Dave Richards, the CEO of the Banbury, UK automotive and motorsport development company Prodrive delivered the opening keynote speech on the first day of the Motor Sport Business Forum which is taking place in Bahrain ahead of next weekend’s Formula One Bahrain Grand Prix.

In his speech drew attention to the development of the region that had taken place in the past 10 years and observed that around $11bn had been invested in motorsport projects including the building of a number of race circuits.

Richards said, "From next year, this region will have six world class race circuits. It shows that the Gulf has become a significant focal point for the motor sport industry."

He noted that the circuits had developed a new business model for racing facilities around the world, with the addition of subsidiary businesses to complement the main events on the track, saying, "The business model of a stand-alone race circuit is gone forever. This area of the world is looking at motor sport as a proper sustainable business plan and we should all pay attention."

The Great Britain cycling team’s performance director, Dave Brailsford has acknowledged the part played by Formula One teams and motorsport technology in its success at the 2008 Track Cycling World Championships in Manchester last week.

Brailsford said, “We have been greatly supported by UK Sport, who have managed to get people from BAe systems and Formula One. They have pulled together this group of boffins and it's miraculous what they have done. We have done a huge amount of work with the wind tunnel in Southampton and have come up with some pretty cool stuff. We don't think anyone has noticed, so we will use it and see where we go from there."

The UK based Advanced Composite Group (ACG) in Heanor, Derbyshire, which supplies products and services to the motorsport industry and other sectors, has launched a new and innovative technology.

ACG’s Deformable Composite System (DCS) is a new ground-breaking tooling and mass production component prepreg which is claimed to be a time and cost-saving technology that combines the conformability of a short fibre molding compound with the directional characteristics of a high performance, long fibre composite.

Dr. John Nixon, Technical Marketing Manager at ACG, said: “This new, market leading technology is an exciting addition to our extensive product range. This product will allow customers to save money and improve efficiency whilst maintaining the high standard expecting of our products. We look forward to working with our customers to find and develop new and exciting applications for such a versatile technology.”

The Thatcham, Berkshire, UK based motorsport transmission specialist Xtrac has confirmed that it will become the supplier of a fixed specification gearbox for the Brazilian Stock Car Championship starting in 2009

Xtrac will supply competitors in the series which caters for 450bhp V8 powered production based cars with a gearbox based on its successful Grand American Daytona Prototype transmission design.

According to Xtrac’s managing director Peter Digby, minimal changes have been necessary to the design, which was originally developed in 2003. He said, "To reduce the cost of the gearbox we started to produce them on a larger scale. It's an adaptable gearbox and can be used in a variety of cars. By enlarging the production we can reduce our costs - all this without damaging the quality, of course.”

Following member states’ agreement earlier this month to finalise a new EU new car CO2 emissions regime during France's six-month EU presidency which begins in July, the European Commission has launched a public consultation on specific elements of the 'integrated approach' which is intended to deliver 10g/km of the 130g/km proposed new car CO2 regulation for 2012. Evidence and opinions are sought on the potential contributions of gear-shift indicators and the reduction of energy use by in-car air-conditioning systems.

The Commission requests that interested parties send their replies to the consultation by 13 May 2008. For full details, please follow the associated links. The consultation document can be downloaded from: http://ec.europa.eu/enterprise/automotive/environment/mac/consultation/index.htm

Stakeholders are invited to send their views on the mentioned issues and possibly other comments to the following mail box: , following the guidelines and mentioning "MAC & GSI Regulation" in the subject line, by 13th May 2008.

For further questions stakeholders are requested to email or the secretariat of the unit ENTR.F1 at the European Commission, Tel. +32 2 29 55962.

The Commission’s initial proposals for a 130 g/km fleet average emissions limit, for which it hoped to propose a legislative framework at the latest by mid 2008, hoped to “reach the objective of 130 g CO2/km for the average new car fleet by means of improvements in vehicle motor technology, and a further reduction of 10 g CO2/km, or equivalent if technically necessary, by other technological improvements and by an increased use of bio-fuels, specifically:

a) setting minimum efficiency requirements for air-conditioning systems …

…

d) the use of gear shift indicators, taking into account the extent to which such devices are used by consumers in real driving conditions.”

The envisaged legislation may be proposed as an amendment of existing EU legislation on mobile air conditioning or as separate new legislation. In the context of this legal initiative or at a later stage the Commission may also propose some modifications to the safety regulation on mobile air conditioning, details of which are given in the consultation document.

(LowCVP newsletter, 26 March, Automotive News Europe, 31 March)

The Dutch Government-funded environmental assessment agency MNP has called on the EU to reconsider the target to increase the share of biofuels in transport fuels by 10% by 2020. The agency has concluded that the potential for biofuels to reduce greenhouse gas emissions is quite low, and suggests that the Commission's biofuels policies may be hindering the development of alternatives to biofuels, including electric cars, hybrids and fuel cell cars.

The agency’s report says that the 20–30m hectares of EU land needed to produce enough crops to turn into the 35m tonnes of oil equivalent biofuels required to meet the 10% target “is not likely to become available within Europe”, even if the EU’s agricultural sector were fully liberalised. There is also no certainty that enough biofuels could be imported to meet any shortfall in domestic production.

According to the report, the European Commission’s sustainability criteria for biofuels — greenhouse gas emissions in the whole production chain at least 35% lower than from conventional fuels — are not likely to be met in the real world.

The MNP report concludes that 'global displacement effects' should feature more prominently in the EU's biofuels sustainability criteria. It also warns of inevitable rises in food prices driven by the increased demand for biofuels. The EU should include mechanisms in its biofuel promotion policies to pay for biodiversity protection and support food importing regions, it adds.

- This site reported earlier this month that Robert Watson, chief scientist at the UK Department for the Environment, had called on ministers to postpone the introduction of the Renewable Transport Fuel Obligation (RTFO), scheduled for tomorrow, April 1, review into the indirect effects of biofuels production commissioned from the Renewable Fuels Agency has been completed.

The State of California’s Air Resources Board has voted to triple the amount of zero emissions vehicles that staff had proposed for manufacturers to produce from 2012 to 2014. Staff had proposed to require 2,500 pure ZEVs, which the Board increased to 7,500. The previous ARB requirement, from 2003, had called for 25,000 such vehicles during the same period. Manufacturers can now produce fewer ZEVs (5,357) if they are long-range fuel cell vehicles or they can opt to satisfy the requirement by manufacturing 12,500 battery electric vehicles with a range of 100 miles.

The Board maintained a second component of the vehicle emissions reduction programme by requiring an additional 66,000 plug-in hybrids during the same 2012-2014 period. If they produce 25,000 ZEVs, there will be no remaining plug-in hybrid requirements.

ARB Chairman Mary Nichols also directed staff to overhaul the ZEV programme for 2015 vehicles to ‘synch up’ with other ARB tailpipe emission programmes such as the Pavley regulations addressing greenhouse gas emissions and the low emissions vehicle programme.

Created in 1990, the ZEV programme seeks to spur technological advancements in the automotive industry that lead to more clean cars on California’s roadways. It is the world’s only enforceable requirement for the development and production of ZEVs.

As a direct result of the programme, the ARB says over 750,000 Californians are currently driving vehicles with near-zero emissions and an extended emissions warranty of 15 years or 150,000 miles. They are 80% cleaner than the average 2002 model year car. Independent aftermarket representatives have complained that these extended emissions warranties cut aftermarket suppliers out of emissions-related repair work, holding it captive to the OEMs concerned.

(www.arb.ca.gov/)