JENSON BUTTON & LEWIS HAMILTON DRIVE THE MCLAREN MP4-12C

The last two Formula 1 World Champions now drive for the same team, Woking-based McLaren. McLaren, you may recall, is readying its first road car since the McLaren F1 for production. As you would have guessed, benefits of driving for one of the planet's most famous racing outfits include the opportunity to drive the McLaren MP4-12C early on. Jenson Button and Lewis Hamilton drive and discuss in the video below.

Here's what you'll learn in the video, apart from the fact that Jenson Button wears expensive sunglasses. Gunmetal grey is a good colour for the McLaren MP4-12C, unless you want to call it matte black. The sound of a McLaren MP4-12C is delicious. Compared with a Formula 1 car, driving a road car on a track is downright boring for a Formula 1 driver.

Related From GoodCarBadCar.net

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McLaren MP4-12C Gallery

Bugatti Veyron vs McLaren F1

GIVE ME A SPORTY HONDA. HOW 'BOUT THE HSV-010 GT?

Where have all the sporty Hondas gone? They haven't left Honda looking for a more luxurious home at Acura, that's for sure.

Iconic nomenclature like Acura Integra, the Acura Integra Type-R, and the Acura NSX are dead and gone. The Honda S2000? She gone. The Honda Prelude is no more. The Acura Integra became the Acura RSX. Acura's RSX is.... dead and gone.

What are we left with? The Honda Civic Si is no joke; a blast to drive and affordable for regular folk, too. We've all heard about the Honda CR-Z. But the preliminary specs, especially in regards to weight, are discouraging. Then there's the.... Wait a second, there isn't really anything else. The Honda Accord V6 Coupe is fast, but not a truly sporting vehicle. Anybody looking for true dynamic ability isn't buying a front-wheel drive or all-wheel drive Acura TSX - they'd buy a BMW 3-Series or Infiniti G37 first.

Whither the NSX?

In the pictures of this post you're looking at the Honda HSV-010 GT, Honda's entry in the GT500 class of the 2010 Super GT Series. Races take place at Fuji, Suzuka, and Sepang and a few other tracks. Competitors for the Honda HSV-010 GT will include GT500-spec versions of the Nissan GT-R, Ferrari F430, Aston Martin DB9 (the DBR9), and even the Lexus SC430. Rules are loose, although the cars have way more relation with their donor vehicle than in NASCAR or probably even the DTM.

So isthe Honda HSV 010-GT the awkwardly named replacement for the Acura NSX, a car which was labelled the Honda NSX outside of North America? This seems more than likely. The front-engined HSV pulls its engine so far rearward that balance is 50:50, perhaps even biased to the rear as in the mid-engined Acura NSX. The engine, by the way, is a 3.4L V8 with 496 horsepower and 289 lb-ft of torque. The Honda HSV is just over 15 feet long and nearly 79 inches across.

Abandoning the mid-engine placement of the Acura NSX seems like a strange move at first until you realize the ease with which automakers place their big V8s so close to the cabin these days. Naturally, this dramatically differentiates the HSV-010 GT's proportions when contrasted with the old NSX. It's difficult to imagine what this race car would look like without all the racing addendum. Noting a few specific areas of the bodywork might help you picture the road car result.

The front fenders of this car swoop up and over the wheels before dipping slightly as the hip-line flows toward the windshield. This is a good thing. Honda designed a small greenhouse which takes shape similarly to that of the Nissan 370Z, merging simply with the rear deck. The cat eyes on the front end are hugely striking regardless of your like or dislike for the otherwise simple front view. Through the vast rear wing at the back you'll notice taillamps which span the body's width. And a diffuser the size of Wakayama.

Honda's HSV-010 GT could translate into a very good-looking road car. In spite of this, I have fears that the production version could be dumbed down to a level where we'll appreciate its shape but wonder at its lack of exotic appeal. Nevertheless, we're forced to wait and see.

HISTORICAL RACING - MERCEDES-BENZ 300 SLR

Nearly 55 years after the fact, NetCarShow.com has compiled 80 pictures of the Mercedes-Benz 300 SLR and the Gallery can be seen right here, right now. Unfortunately, one-quarter of the Gallery is tainted by the hints of - or even full frontals of - the '04 Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren, not the prettiest car on a list of the ugliest cars of all time.

In The Good Car Guy's 100 Favourite Cars feature from early October the 300 SL Gullwing made a strong and unsurprising appearance. The corresponding racecar, the 300 SLR, was said to be as robust as it was elegant; two terms not normally applied to track cars. The inline-six-cylinder engine weighed 518 pounds, generated nearly 300 horsepower, and was once tested on a dynamometer at the equivalent of racing revs for 9,800 kilometres.... plus another 32 hours. Apparently the only part in need of changing was the oil rings at about 6K.

Names like Fangio and Moss, with races like Le Mans and the Mille Miglia and the Targa Florio, combine to make the 300 SLR's history as evocative as that of any ex-racer. In all honesty, the names of today's racers and races will never be remembered as fondly because the cars they drive will not be recognized the same way. The Mercedes-Benz 300 SLR lingers as a proverbial nod to an era before racing efforts were computerized and tested digitally, a stunning retrospect of romantic motorsports.

2010 FORMULA 1 CALENDAR

As the 2009 Formula 1 season comes to an end, FIA has announced the dates of all nineteen races for 2010. Negotiations between nations/states/provinces/cities and Bernie Ecclestone were tumultuous this year, a year in which the racing on F1 tracks went against the grain.

Put it this way: we have no idea what to expect in 2010. The final two races may switch dates. The Canadian Grand Prix in Montreal and the British GP still need to work some details out with F1 bigshots. And the circuits in Korea and Abu Dhabi still need to be formally approved. However, set your iPhone alarm for these nineteen dates.

March 14: Bahrain
Marc 28: Australia
April 4: Malaysia
March 18: China
May 9: Spain
May 16: Monaco
May 30:Turkey
June 13: Canada
June 27: Europe (Valencia, Spain)
July 11: Great Britain
July 25: Germany
August 1: Hungary
August 29: Belgium
September 12: Italy
September 26: Singapore
October 3: Japan
October 17: Korea
October 31: Abu Dhabi
November 14: Brazil

WATCH F1 ITALIAN GRAND PRIX STREAMING LIVE

Ross Brawn's ability to.... poof.... make a good team out of relative nothingness is something to be seriously admired. Here comes the Italian Grand Prix and Ferrari is on a one-race winning streak. Can the underdogs - who are actually favourites now - at Red Bull and Brawn punch back at Ferrari's Kimi Raikkonen and McLaren's Lewis Hamilton who've won two of the last three races and the last two world championships?

You'll find out here on GoodCarBadCar.net with free live streaming action of the Formula 1 Italian Grand Prix, officially the Formula 1 Gran Premio Santander D'Italia 2009. Click the links below just in advance of the race for the free streams.

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WATCH FORMULA 1 ITALIAN GRAND PRIX

WATCH F1 ITALY GP LIVE STREAMING

WATCH LIVE STREAMING FORMULA 1 GRAND PRIX OF ITALY

WATCH INDIANAPOLIS 500 PRACTICE LIVE STREAMING

Indy 500 practice is an endless affair. It's also wickedly dangerous and fast and makes for good television.

Watch the Indianapolis 500 practice session today (Saturday) at noon ET by clicking the link below. Will Danica shine or will the name Andretti takeover again? Helio could show he's up for his third Indy 500 victory. We shall see.

WATCH STREAMING LIVE INDIANAPOLIS 500 PRACTICE FREE ONLINE

WATCH FORMULA 1 SPANISH GRAND PRIX STREAMING LIVE ONLINE

One can only hope that F1 interference won't be run on the links posted below. It has become increasingly difficult to find broadcasting links that allow for users outside of the UK. Some races have gone without notice here at GoodCarBadCar.net. Effort has been made to find some alternatives. When the Spanish Grand Prix starts on Sunday, try the links which should activate just at race time. Can Brawn GP and Jenson Button continue this shocking run? Can Jenson Button show himself to be Britain's best driver? Watch and learn.

WATCH SPANISH GRAND PRIX STREAMING LIVE ONLINE

WATCH STREAMING SPANISH GRAND PRIX FREE

WATCH FORMULA 1 SPANISH GRAND PRIX STREAMING LIVE FREE ONLINE

WATCH RHYS MILLEN TALK DRIFTING

Rhys Millen's Hyundai Genesis Coupe drifter uses over 600 horsepower to propel 2400 pounds. Double the regular horsepower with nearly a third of the production car's weight gone?

Fun.

In the clip below, there's plenty of Genesis drift action. Millen also describes drifting for simpletons and explains a bunch of the changes from the Genesis Coupe you and I could buy to his ridiculously wicked Hyundai Genesis Coupe drifter.

WATCH CHINA GRAND PRIX STREAMING LIVE ONLINE

UPDATED: LINKS ARE LIVE

Brawn GP? Huh?

Famed Ferrari help-meet Ross Brawn goes to work for Honda F1. Honda F1 can't race itself out of the doldrums, even with decent drivers. Honda goes belly-up in F1. Ross Brawn takes control. Brawn GP wins the first two races of the 2009 Formula 1 calendar. Result.

Can he make it three in a row at the Chinese Grand Prix in Shanghai? One almost wishes for Ferrari and McLaren to continue sucking - just to teach them a lesson - before realizing that F1 needs their big names. You'll be able to watch the race streaming live for free online through links and/or an embedded player here at GoodCarBadCar.net. Curiously, the lap record at Shanghai is held by one Michael Schumacher in 2004's Ferrari F1 racer at 1:32.238. Ross Brawn would have been the chief engineer behind that car.

Regardless, a third race win would certainly place the pressure on Brawn's drivers, fellow-Brit Jenson Button and Brazil's Rubens Barichello. 305 kilometres around the 5.451-kilometre circuit in Shanghai must be completed first. To watch the race, use the links below as they go active in the hours leading up to the race. To see everything GoodCarBadCar.net has on the race, click here. For last year's run, click here.

WATCH CHINESE GRAND PRIX STREAMING LIVE ONLINE

WATCH STREAMING CHINA GP

WATCH FORMULA 1 CHINA GRAND PRIX STREAMING LIVE FREE ONLINE

WATCH F1 LIVE ONLINE CHINA GP

WATCH BTCC JASON PLATO SAVE HIS SKIN

The Chevrolet Lacetti, a car we know in Canada as the Chevrolet Optra and Americans once saw as the Suzuki Forenza, is raced in the British Touring Car Championship. Weird, I know. However, famed BTCC driver Jason Plato makes it look not weird at all. In the video below, Plato's rear bumper is knocked off as he's nudged by a BMW. After a long and likely arduous drift, Plato manages to bring the Lacetti back into the picture as though nothing was the matter. Check it.

WATCH DAYTONA 500 STREAMING LIVE ONLINE FREE - KENSETH WINS

*Update: 7:34 PM EST.*

As seen thru links at GoodCarBadCar, Matt Kenseth won a shortened Daytona 500 today. Rain and crashes helped Kenseth to the victory after a 2008 season where he failed to win a single race.

GoodCarBadCar.net and Nascar don't carry on as well a working relationship as, say, GoodCarBadCar.net and Formula 1. However, getting up for the Daytona 500 isn't that hard. Read why Lars Anderson figures Dale Earnhardt Jr. to be the winner here.

Good news, good news. The Daytona 500 will be available for viewing live online for free. Hopefully, one player will even be available right here in the middle of GoodCarBadCar. Regardless, the lines you see below will turn into links before the race. The final link of those currently available below will be a 14-day free trial with NASCAR RaceView but will offer a far better viewing experience if you take the time to sign up. If a TVU player jumps up, it might be embedded here later. 

WATCH FERRARI F1 2009 ON TRACK TESTING

Saturday is supposedly Recall day at GoodCarBadCar.net. Check in... find out how dangerous your car is... go get it fixed. That sort of thing. But fortunately for the consumer world, NHTSA released zero recall notices this week. 

Rather than moan about good news, let's watch some racing. Well, actually it's just testing. This is the Ferrari F60 Formula 1 car for 2009. Although these new F1 regulations make the cars look straight out of the 80s, it should make for good racing. Of course, GoodCarBadCar.net will have all the online race watching details for you each race weekend.

WATCH THE BUGATTI VEYRON MURDER THE PAGANI ZONDA IN DRAG RACE ON TOP GEAR

Proof that there's no replacement for displacement or for quad-turbochargers, the Bugatti Veyron and The Stig absolutely throttled James May and the Pagani Zonda F roadster in a drag race on British television show Top Gear. After seeing this clip at TopSpeed.com I thought it ought to be spread around more liberally. Not because The Good Car Guy loves the Bugatti more than the Zonda (on the contrary), but because the sight of two of the world's greatest supercars together in a straight line given full welly is a sight to behold, indeed. Who knows how long it'll work until BBC takes it down, but check it out while you can.

NEW AUDI LE MANS VIDEO IS HONEST

Audi's latest 35-second clip profiling their Le Mans efforts says quite truthfully that, "You win Indy" and that, "You win Monaco",  but "You survice Le Mans". The gruelling 24 hour race has been owned by Audi in this century and you can't deny that the Volkswagen subsidiary knows what it takes: straight-up perserverance.

Check out the clip below to see Audi's terrifying humour at the end of the video.

LEWIS HAMILTON'S RACING BIOGRAPHY IN 3 MINUTES OF CNN VIDEO

Yesterday Lewis Hamilton became the first Englishman to win the Formula 1 championship since 1996. He is the youngest ever title holder. The race was available right here on GoodCarBadCar.net, but for the racing background of this McLaren-Mercedes superstar, check out CNN's 'Hamilton's Fast Rise' below. 

FORMULA1.COM HAS CHINESE GRAND PRIX READY FOR STREAMING

The Chinese Grand Prix from Shanghai is ready for viewing at Formula1.com by simply following this link. Don't forget that the live race was available here on GoodCarBadCar.net, just like the live Brazilian Grand Prix will be available streaming here, as well. Forget attempts to avoid spoiling it for you - it's been over a week. Lewis Hamilton's McLaren-Mercedes raced from pole to chequered flag. He's first in the championship going into this weekend's final race.

STOCK CAR COMPARO: AUDI A4, FORD FUSION, FORD FALCON & LAMBORGHINI GALLARDO

Turn it over to the dictionary. A stock car is "a racing car with a basic chassis of an ordinary commercially produced vehicle" or "an automobile of a standard make modified for racing" or "a standard model of automobile changed in various ways for racing purposes". 

Or as the people (Wikipedia) like to say, "A stock car, in the original sense of the termdescribed an automobile that has not been modified from its original factory configuration. Later the term stock car came to mean any production-based automobile used in racing. Now a days stock cars are not stock, since no Ford Fusion that us common people can buy has a 700 HP engine."

Without delving into the battle of Nascar pros and cons and protagonists and antagonists; let this be a comparison on purely superficial terms. Aesthetics only. Beauty, first and foremost.

While it's not difficult to discover that the Toyota Camry; Chevrolet Impala, Dodge Charger, and Ford Fusion you and I can buy in any car dealership in North America aren't exactly drop-dead gorgeous, their "stock car" racing brethren give a whole new meaning to ugly. NASCAR stock cars rank fourth in this four-way comparison. 

The German touring car series, known officially as the Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters, takes a somewhat NASCAR-like approach as far as alterring the car goes. However, technology is not avoided at all costs, resulting in amazingly capable cars. But the once-hot Audi A4 is turned into a monster. For a monster, it's not bad-looking. For an A4? Disappointing.

In Australia, however, the Pontiac G8 equivalent from Holden races against the rather alluring Ford Falcon in the V8 Supercars series. Good looks all around net the Falcon second place.

Will you have a look at this specimen, the Lamborghini Gallardo LP560-4 Super Trofeo. Yow, and indeed, zah. This Gallardo stock car will race in its own series against other Gallardos of the same type in support of DTM, WTCC, and FIA GT races. Dealers and wealthy enthusiasts will have a chance at the thirty cars, cars that Lamborghini says will make for the fastest one-make series in the world. Each car costs about €200,000; support for which will surely increase the tag. The factory team will make use of celebrity drivers, some of whom we can assume will be at least half as good-looking as the car. The Lamborghini Gallardo LP560-4 Super Trofeo wins this comparison handily.

CHINESE F1 GRAND PRIX RESULTS - HAMILTON NEARLY LOCKS IT UP

Brazilians will be up close and personal with Felipe Massa's tension at the early November Formula 1 race; the final meeting of the season. 

In Shanghai, Massa was offered second place when teammate Kimi Raikkonen let him through in order to tighten the gap going into the next race. Lewis Hamilton drove his McLaren-Mercedes very well and his seven point lead seems safe. Massa's Ferrari needs at least second place in Brazil, and that's with Hamilton finishing out of the points. A victory for the Brazilian Ferrari driver with Hamilton no better than seventh would also do the trick. Lewis and his Mercedes V8-powered F1 car have only been worse than seventh four times this season; in Bahrain (13th), Canada (ret.) and France (10th) and Japan (12th). He's scored five wins including this most recent Shanghai victory. Massa and his Ferrari have won five races along with two 13ths a 17th in Hungary and two retirements.

The Formula  Grande Premio Do Brasil 2008 at Interlagos will be available for viewing here on GoodCarBadCar.net - streaming live online for free - just like every other race of the season; barring complications where viewers will be provided with other streaming locations.

Ferrari has a firm grip in the team championship. BMW has a theoretical chance of overtaking McLaren-Mercedes in the constructor's championship, too. That won't happen. BMW's Robert Kubica, sitting in third position, can't climb higher and is unlikely to lose that position to Kimi Raikkonen of Ferrari. Full results from China are below.

1 - Lewis Hamilton, McLaren-Mercedes

2 - Felipe Massa, Ferrari

3- Kimi Raikkonen, Ferrari

4 - Fernando Alonso, Renault

5 - Nick Heidfeld, BMW

6 - Robert Kubica, BMW

7 - Timo Glock, Toyota

8- Nelsinho Piquet, Renault

9- Sebastian Vettel, Scuderia Toro Rosso-Ferrari

10- David Coulthard, Red Bull-Renault

11 Rubens Barichello, Honda

12- Kazuki Nakajima, Williams-Toyota

13- Sebastian Bourdais, Scuderia Toro Rosso-Ferrari

14- Mark Webber, Red Bull-Renault

15- Nico Rosberg, Williams-Toyota

16-Jenson Button, Honda

17- Giancarlo Fisichella, Force India-Ferrari

DNF- Heikki Kovalainen, McLaren-Mercedes*

DNF- Adrian Sutil, Force India-Ferrari

DNF- Jarno Trulli, Toyota

* Marks only the second time this season where a McLaren-Mercedes driver failed to complete the race because of mechanical problems, the first being last week in Japan with Kovalainen's engine.

WATCH THE RECORDED FORMULA 1 JAPAN GRAND PRIX AT FUJI ONLINE

Formula 1's own site has gotten the Japan Grand Prix through production and it's now ready for viewing. If for some reason these five days haven't been enough for your ears to hear or your eyes to see the name of the winner, The Good Car Guy won't spoil it for you. Suffice to say, the number of different F1 winners this season has been good for the worldwide audience. Check out the race by following this link to the medium-sized version of the Formula 1 Japan Grand Prix at Fuji.

WATCH THE FORMULA 1 GRAND PRIX OF CHINA LIVE STREAMING FREE ONLINE

56 laps of the 5.5km circuit in Shanghai will be completed first by some lucky Formula 1 driver this Sunday. You'll be able to watch the race live streaming for free online right here at GoodCarBadCar.net while also being supplied links to other places where the race will be streamed live for free.

The embedded player below will work with Windows/IE users. The secondary embedded player should be more roundly successful but isn't as reliable. Check just as the race starts. Three links will go live around the same time so you can present yourself with streaming options of the Formula 1 Chinese Grand Prix.