• Super Aguri F1 team in administration
• New marketing appointments at Honda Racing
• British MotoGP to move to Silverstone
• Changes to WTCC calendar
• Wirth Research wins export award
• PRI show in Orlando until 2016
• Clean Green Cars proposes partnership with TfL on London Congestion Charge
• Daf Trucks promotes fuel and economy advances in past 30 years

The Leafield, UK based Super Aguri F1 team has gone into administration and withdrawn from the FIA Formula One World Championship after a rescue plan by the German Wiegl Group failed.

Philip Long, of administrators PKF, who are seeking a purchaser for the business as a going concern, said, "This provides a unique opportunity to get into high-level motorsport without having to build an operation from scratch. In terms of capability, a new team could easily be up and running for the 2009 season.

"Virtually everything is in place including the people, the technical expertise, the premises, and testing facilities. A new team could walk in and take over a fully operational unit from day one and I'm pleased that there has already been significant interest."

The Brackley, UK based Honda Racing Formula One team has made three new appointments in its marketing department.

Richard Berry has been named as the team’s new head of sponsorship while Bastien Hibon, formerly the creative director at Friends of the Earth, has been appointed head of brand and Dominic Warne, formerly a marketing capability consultant at Brand Learning, is the new marketing manager for the earthdreams campaign.

A report on the Visordown.com website says that the British round of the MotoGP motorcycle racing world championship will take place at the Silverstone circuit near Northampton from 2010 onwards.

The British race has been held at the Donington Park circuit near Derby since 1987 but according to the Visordown story Silverstone has secured the rights to stage the event after agreeing to changes to safety arrangements.

The FIA World Touring Car Championship races that were scheduled to take place in September at the Anderstorp circuit in Sweden are to be replaced by races at the Imola circuit in Italy.

The races will be the first international motor racing events to be held at Imola, which hosted the Formula One San Marino Grand Prix from 1981-2006, since it underwent an extensive refurbishment programme in 2006-07.

The Bicester, UK based motorsport engineering consultancy group Wirth Research as won the 2008 Queens Award for International Trade.

The company, which was formed in 2003 and is a strategic partner in the Honda American Le Mans Series sportscar racing programme, won the award after achieving growth in export sales of 378% in the past three years.

Nick Wirth, the technical director of Wirth Research, said "This is really a great day for everyone involved in Wirth Research. The sustained effort needed to achieve our success is a testament to the talent and commitment of all of our associates, and reflects the growing confidence that our clients have in our services and products, of which we are immensely proud."

The organisers of the USA’s Performance Racing Industry Trade Show have confirmed that the event will continue to be stage in Orlando, Florida until at least 2016

The PRI Trade Show, which is claimed to be the world’s largest motor racing trade show, first took place in Louisville, Kentucky in 1988 and was held in Cincinnati, Nashville, Columbus and Indianapolis before relocating to Orlando in 2005.

PRI Show producer Steve Lewis said, “After holding the PRI Trade Show in Orlando for three very successful years, it is now viewed by exhibitors and attendees as the place to be for the future.

“Exhibitors appreciate the strong annual domestic and international buyer attendance in Orlando. Buyers appreciate shopping the 1,000,000-square-foot exhibit hall featuring displays of all the latest product lines in motorsports.

“Orlando provides the PRI Trade Show with all the attributes of a great host city, including a spectacular convention center, and this has been proven by the enormous volume of business transactions concluded every year at the Show.”

The Clean Green Cars website’s proprietors have written to the newly-elected Mayor of London Boris Johnson suggesting that their data analysis tools could frame a revised Congestion Charge that would be both fairer to motorists and more effective in reducing overall pollution.

The site says the plans announced by the former Mayor, Ken Livingstone, which are due to take effect in October 2008, are fundamentally flawed and will be counter-productive, for the following reasons:

TfL has stated that that only 2% of cars are below the 120 g/km CO2 limit for Congestion Charge exemption. This, says Clean Green Cars, is completely missing the point – TfL appears to have measured the total number of vehicles in use to obtain this figure.

For new car sales, the percentage has risen from 5.4% in 2007 to 7.9% in the first three months of 2008 – and it will exceed 10% by the end of the year. That means 10% of all new cars will not have to pay the Congestion Charge, even if motorists in London buy no more low-emission cars than the national average.

Owners of large new vehicles that would have to pay £25 per day under the scheme proposed by Ken Livingstone’s administration can afford to buy a brand-new Congestion Charge-free car with the savings they will make. For example, if a Range Rover owner is faced with a charge of £125 per week, they can simply buy a brand new BMW 118d to drive into London at a weekly cost far lower than that (the typical weekly cost of a BMW 118d on a Personal Contract Plan is approximately £80 per week).

Hence, the very high charge for large vehicles may actually increase both congestion and overall pollution. This concern has already been echoed by an independent report (by AEA Technology) commissioned by TfL itself, which suggests that « there could be an increase in the overall numbers of cars travelling within the zone," and that the consequent "increased congestion would mean all vehicles moving more slowly and hence increased CO2 emissions."

Clean Green Cars suggests:

- A stricter target of 110 g/km CO2 for cars qualifying for the lowest charge be applied

- Vehicles achieving 110g/km or below should be charged £4 rather than being allowed in for nothing

- Vehicles emitting more than over 225g/km should be charged £12 rather than £25

The site's publishers argue that setting the threshold at 110g/km will diminish the risk, identified in the AEA report, of Londoners switching to 120g/km-and-below models in sufficient numbers to cause congestion to increase, making the changes self-defeating, as will the imposition of a £4 charge rather than the exemption currently proposed. The Congestion Charge is still intended to be a charge on congestion and it therefore makes sense to charge any vehicle that enters the zone.

The 110g/km limit would, it is argued, also encourage car manufacturers to work harder to develop cars with lower emissions. Any family-sized car (e.g. Ford Focus) with a 1.6 litre diesel engine can meet the 120 g/km limit today, whereas 110 g/km of CO2 would provide manufacturers with a challenging, but achievable, target.

The suggested £12 charge for vehicles over 225g/km, reduced from the proposed £25, is designed to discourage potentially well-off owners of these vehicles buying an additional low-emission car instead of replacing their high-emission model.

www.cleangreencars.co.uk’s founders are Richard Bremner, the motoring journalist, and Jay Nagley, an industry analyst.

Daf Trucks has compared the environmental performance of its trucks in 1977 and today. It says that in 1977, a typical maximum capacity truck, running at 32 tonnes gross, carrying a payload of 20.5 tonnes on a 320 km journey used 130 litres of diesel and put out 16.7 kg of CO2 per tonne of payload. Including a statutory 45-minute break, the journey took six hours and ten minutes. In 2007, a maximum capacity truck running at 44 tonnes gross, carrying a payload of 29.5 tonnes on the same journey used 103 litres of diesel and emitted 9.2 kg of CO2 per tonne of payload.

Including the same statutory break, the journey took four hours and 15 minutes. In summary, the 2007 truck used 21% less diesel, carried 30% more payload and emitted 21% less CO2 than its 1977 counterpart , providing a CO2/t/km saving of 45%. The truck emitted 96% less particulates and 87% less NOX. It was also 33% quicker, although working within a lower maximum speed limit. The modern truck also produced one-twelfth of the noise of the older model.