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Ferrari's Fernando Alonso won a dramatic Formula One Malaysian Grand Prix on Sunday, giving the Italian team one of its more unlikely victories in its long history.
In a race that was stopped for 51 minutes because of rain, Alonso looked like he'd be overtaken by Sauber's Sergio Perez until the Mexican ran off the track with six laps to go, giving the Ferrari enough of a gap to hang on.
Ferrari had been considered to be in crisis after a poor start to the season, but a superb display of wet-weather driving gave Alonso a memorable victory. Perez's second-place finish was Sauber's best-ever.
Pole-sitter Lewis Hamilton of McLaren finished third ahead of Red Bull's Mark Webber and Lotus' Kimi Raikkonen.
FINAL CLASSIFICATION
1 F Alonso (Ferrari)
2 S Perez (Sauber)
3 L Hamilton (McLaren)
4 M Webber (Red Bull)
5 K Raikkonen (Lotus)
6 B Senna (Williams)
7 P Di Resta (Force India)
8 J Vergne (Toro Rosso)
9 N Hulkenberg (Force India)
10 M Schumacher (Mercedes)
11 S Vettel (Red Bull)
12 D Ricciardo (Toro Rosso)
13 N Rosberg (Mercedes)
14 J Button (McLaren)
15 F Massa (Ferrari)
16 V Petrov (Caterham)
17 T Glock (Marussia)
18 H Kovalainen (Caterham)
19 C Pic (Marussia)
20 N Karthikeyan (HRT)
21 P de la Rosa (HRT)
DNF P Maldonado (Williams)
DNF K Kobayashi (Sauber)
DNF R Grosjean (Lotus)
2 S Perez (Sauber)
3 L Hamilton (McLaren)
4 M Webber (Red Bull)
5 K Raikkonen (Lotus)
6 B Senna (Williams)
7 P Di Resta (Force India)
8 J Vergne (Toro Rosso)
9 N Hulkenberg (Force India)
10 M Schumacher (Mercedes)
11 S Vettel (Red Bull)
12 D Ricciardo (Toro Rosso)
13 N Rosberg (Mercedes)
14 J Button (McLaren)
15 F Massa (Ferrari)
16 V Petrov (Caterham)
17 T Glock (Marussia)
18 H Kovalainen (Caterham)
19 C Pic (Marussia)
20 N Karthikeyan (HRT)
21 P de la Rosa (HRT)
DNF P Maldonado (Williams)
DNF K Kobayashi (Sauber)
DNF R Grosjean (Lotus)
Ferrari has been known to produce one-off vehicles for customers, most notably the F430-based SP1 created for a wealthy Japanese collector in 2008 as well as the P540 Superfast Aperta created on the 599 FTB Fiorano platform in 2009.
Now, Ferrari Special Projects program has built a third vehicle, this time for musician Eric Clapton, who is known to be a passionate Ferrari collector.
The car looks to be based on the 458 Italia and has distinct styling references to the 12-cylinder Ferrari 512 BB built in the late 1970s and early 1980s with a large lower grille, hood slats and flying buttresses at the rear. Judging from the photos, the interior appears to be relatively unchanged from the 458 Italia, and the mid-mounted 4.5-liter V8 is likely still in place as well.
The Ferrari F12 Berlinetta has been officially unveiled ahead of the Geneva Motor Show.
The replacement for the 599 has a number of improvements over the outgoing model. Horsepower gets a massive bump, from 611 to 730; 509 lb-ft of torque is on tap, with 80 percent available at just 2,500 rpm. Curb weight drops from 3,722 pounds to 3,362 pounds, 56 percent of which rests over the rear axle. The F12 has a drag coefficient of 0.299 and stronger downforce compared with the 599, and structural rigidity improves by 20 percent. The all-new aluminum chassis was designed by Scaglietti and incorporates a dozen alloys. Basically, it's everything you want in a next-step Ferrari: stronger, stiffer, lighter and more powerful.
Also, it's gorgeous. The F12 Berlinetta, a styling collaboration between Pininfarina and Ferrari's in-house styling team, is lower and shorter compared with the 599, with a long hood, prominent headlights, the same slick grille seen on the FF and a sweeping, muscular frame.
As expected, the F12 is based on a mid-front-engine configuration with a transaxle layout. The 599's 6-speed automated manual transmission is out, replaced by an F1-style dual-clutch gearbox. The naturally aspirated 6.3-liter V12 engine -- cylinders are banked at 65 degrees -- help push the F12 to a top speed of 211 mph and can blast the car from standstill to 60 mph in just 3.1 seconds. Its time around the Fiorano circuit, at 1:23, is faster than any other Ferrari of the road-going variety.
Here's the new one, Fernando Alonso and Felipe Massa's 2012 contender, launched just now. And what can we say? Possibly that it's best viewed from above?
Actually the plan photograph does show it to be an incredibly tidy design with an extremely narrow rear thanks to magical gearbox shrinking technology. The sidepods are also significantly abbreviated with some cute little aero tricks at the leading edge.
Unlike the McLaren, Ferrari is saying the F2012 is an evolution of last year's not-ever-to-be-called-the-F150. Like the McLaren, it massively borrows from the Red Bull book of making quick F1 cars quicker by going one step further in switching its rear suspension concept from ‘push-rod' to ‘pull-rod', all in the name, once again, of making the car clean in front of the rear wing.
Then there's the nose. The explanation for McLaren avoiding the blight of the platypus snout is apparently that the boffins at Woking have always followed a lower nose aero-concept, so making the tub work with this year's new 7cm lower nose was less of a challenge.
The F2012 won't be getting any shakedown miles any time soon. Fiorano is under a ton of snow. Next week, however, is the first official F1 test of the season. More significantly, Monday is the launch of the Red Bull RB8. It's going to be interesting to see if Adrian Newey goes ugly, too. We somehow doubt it.