The final result of the Monaco GP was not the one expected by the Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro at the end of the saturday’s qualifying session.

The two red pilots were ready to lead the group in the starting grid of the race, but while Felipe Massa confirmed his good condition during the whole weekend, the world champion Kimi Raikkonen made a mistake after another.

The finnish pilot was overcame by Lewis Hamilton at the start of the race, and had later more problems than Massa in the central part of the competition, characterized by alternating rain and by many accidents, finishing 9th, that means without points, because of an unbelievable mistake that lead him to hit the car of Sutil, youngster who was in that moment dreaming of an unexpected 4th place.

At the same time, Massa kept on fighting against Hamilton, who won this historical GP for his first time, and Kubica, who finished second, confirming the great beginning of the season for the BMW team.

The inexperienced driver’s mistakes made by Raikkonen led the english pilot to the first place in the Drivers’ Championship, with Kimi as second and Felipe third; Massa was the one who partly saved the day for Ferrari, gaining six points that let the team to keep 16 points over McLaren-Mercedes in the Constructors’ Championship, waiting for Montreàl GP in June.

Spanish week-end turned into a real triumph for Scuderia Ferrari: the Red cars dominated the Friday’s free practice sessions, Kimi Raikkonen gained the pole position in the qualifying session on Saturday, and the second consecutive one-two for the team on Sunday.

The finnish world champion started perfectly the race, keeping the first place gained with a marvellous lap the previous day. Felipe Massa overcame Alonso at the start, making him understand he was going to have a bad day: infact Alonso dropped out halfway through the race, lefting disappointed a big number of spanish fans, who had to see Ferrari winning as last year, when Massa came first at Montmelò.

Anyway, barring the perfect Ferrari’s race, the day was characterized by the presence of the safety car, caused by the terrible accident involving McLaren pilot Kovalainen after 22 laps: the finnish young driver had a terrifying crash because of a breaking at the front left wheel, that fortunately doesn’t seem to have bad consequences.

Going back to the Scuderia Ferrari’s success, it was to be expected that things would end up like this, but Alonso’s and Heidfeld’s problems helped the team to win back the classification leadership.

“We are very happy for this result” said Stefano Domenicali, Ferrari Director “it is the best we could gain here! We have very strong enemies this year, so we need to focus on the goal, and keep on working as we have done this weekend here. We are leading both rankings, so we have to continue in this way.”

Kimi Raikkonen said: “I had a good start, keeping the first position, and even if the safety car gave us some problems, the team made a perfect job, so everything was great, it was very difficult to do better than this. I’m also glad to know that Heikki (Kovalainen, edit) is feeling good, this is the most important thing!”

Lately, in part because of the first problems of the year for Fernando Alonso, there has been an increase in rumours about the real chance of the Spanish pilot to pass to Scuderia Ferrari in 2009, after only one year since his Renault comeback.

The statements of Dietrich Mateschitz, Red Bull’s owner, are just the last evidence that indicates this possibility for Ferrari’s future. He declared that his team didn’t even try to sign Alonso last year, after his breaking with Mclaren, because “his condition was difficult, being free just for one year”, suggesting that he should already have an agreement with another team, looking at Ferrari as the first suspect.

“In this so short period of time we had no chance to show him our abilities. I consider Alonso one of the best Formula 1 drivers, but we could not give him the car he was eager to drive, so that signing him for only one year would have been a wrong decision” said Mateschitz.

The possibility of the 26 years old driver’s move from Renault to Ferrari next year is thus gaining consistence, considering that Alonso himself confirmed just a week ago that he wants to drive for a winning team, and so Ferrari is an option he’s considering.

Passing from the future to the present, Michael Schumacher is ready to go back to test Ferrari F2008 next wednesday in Barcelona.

The German champion was invited by Scuderia Ferrari to Circuit de Catalunya, and so it will be the second time he will be testing with the team this year, after his first laps in F2008 on 25th of February.

A Ferrari F1 spokeperson said: “Michael Schumacher will be testing with our team on Wednesday. He will mainly focus on the development of slick tyres - the tyres that will be used in 2009. Felipe Massa will be testing on Monday and Tuesday while Kimi Raikkonen will be in the car on Thursay.”

Ferrari Dino is one of the most important car models created by the Ferrari company.

There have been rumours for some years now about a new Dino model, and even if CEO Luca Cordero di Montezemolo keeps on denying this possibility, the new Dino should show off its face before the end of this decade.

The following picture shows just an example of many possible projects considered by experts:

Many articles have been written about the new model, but to understand the significance of this car, we have to think back to its history in the past, and not only the 40 years since it was first produced.

Enzo Ferrari, founder of Ferrari and a great pilot himself with Alfa Romeo, continued driving until the birth of his first son, in 1932, Alfredo Ferrari, called Dino. He was an excellent mechanical engineer, supposed to be the main designer of the 1.5 L DOHC V6 engine for the Formula 2 races. We came to know later that he just helped and encouraged the engineer Vittorio Jano to plan and improve the V6 and V8 engines, that were later basic in the development of many road cars, as the ones who took his name, “Dino”.

Dino Ferrari could not continue his work on this engines because he was hit by muscular dystrophy, and died at the age of 24 in 1955, but he was fundamental for the development of this kind of engine.

The month of october 1965 can be considered, in the

abstract, as the date of birth of the first Dino, because

at the Paris Auto Show was presented the first prototype

of the “Dino Berlinetta Speciale“, with a red exterior and

a coachwork by Pininfarina. (pic to the right)

The following two years saw the multiplication of Dino prototypes, with different interiors and many different exterior colors, with a Dino 206 S showed at the 1966 Turin Car Show that was very similar to the final one.

Finally, in the 1968, we have the first known production of a official Dino, the Dino 206 GT, that appeared in the july of the same year in the factory sales brochure. The 206 GT had a 2.0 L V6 engine, that let it reach the maximum speed of 146 mph (235km/h). It was characterized by soft edges and curving lines typical of earlier Italian cars. The estimated production of this first model has been of 152 cars, of which 99 only in that first year.

The reason of this limited production was the official introduction of its successor, the Dino 246 GT, at the Geneva Auto Show in the month of march of 1969. It was a fixed-top GT coupe, but since february 1972 Ferrari started producing an open Spyder GTS. The engine was developed in a 2.4 L V6, and it was different from the previous one also because of 2 rows of 7 vent holes in the engine compartment lid, one more vent hole than the 206 GT. The Dino’s 2.4L V6 engine was then fundamental in many other Italian cars, as the Lancia Stratos or the Fiat Dino.

The Dino 246 GT was undoubtfully the most successfull of its family, considering the period, with a production of 3,761 cars in the 5 years it has been built by Ferrari.

Since 1973 until 1980 Ferrari produced the 308 GT4 (pic to the right), initially branded as Dino, which had to find the perfect mix between the sport car and the possibility of having a capacity of 4 people.

It was designed by Bertone, and not by Pininfarina, and the difference was obvious looking at the strange angular lines, entirely different from the classical and curvaceous forerunner, the Dino 246 GT.
This controversial styling made this model have less success than the previous, but anyway the Ferrari in 1975 started producing the 208 GT 4, with a depowered engine.

Both models were important because they represented the first production Ferraris to feature the mid-engined V8 engine, and were sold on the whole 3,761 cars.

Ferrari Dino made the history of the Italian brand, and it is still a legend, as showed by many books that have been written about it, and by the existence of a website dedicated only to this magical car: www.dinoregister.com

Bahrain’s GP ended in the best possible way for Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro: Felipe Massa won the race, for the first time this year and for the 6th in his career, and Kimi Raikkonen was second, going back on the top of the Drivers’ Championship.

It was an important day for the italian team for many more reasons, as that it was the 100th victory with Luca di Montezemolo as President of Ferrari. Moreover, the 18 points gained by the two pilots let the team reach the second position in the Teams Standing, just one point behind the remarkable BMW.

Anyway, what should be underlined as basic for the future of the Scuderia Ferrari during this season, is the different approach showed by both the pilots and the team, that permitted them to rule the race since the first until the last lap, a change of mentality from the previous weeks that lets us wait for the next races more confidently, as done by the protagonists of the victory:

“We are very happy about this wonderful one-two finish,” said team boss Stefano Domenicali. “After a bad start to the season, we have proved we know how to react with our actions, as usual. We worked well all weekend and the results therefore followed. Now we have to continue down this road, without allowing our absolute concentration to slip for a moment, because in a championship that looks like being very close, it takes almost nothing to lose precious points.”

Felipe Massa commented, “Sensational! Finally, after a start to the championship under dark clouds, I can see the sunshine again. We kept our concentration all weekend long and this is the result. We knew we could count on a great car and that certainly proved to be the case, given that I never had to push to the maximum once I was in the lead…….I always had in mind what happened in Malaysia and so I tried to pay attention all the time, to ensure I brought the car home.”

The past 28th October 2007 Scuderia Ferrari published that the FXX Programme is being extended another year. SF took this decision because in the past two years, with help of the seven times Formula 1 World Champion Michael Schumacher, the car has improved constantly.

The biggest changes are in the aerodynamics and in the gearbox; changes that make the car a whopping 3 seconds faster around the Fiorano Race Track.
Ferrari engineers, though, think that they will be able to make the car some 2 second faster during the course of the next year.

This new iteration of the already staggering FXX is called FXX Evoluzione, and it sports trimmed shift times, and a boosted 6.3-liter V12, upping its output to 860 horsepower.
Also on board, a new traction control system, upgraded Brembo brakes and a modified front suspension geometry, resulting in longer life for the 19-inch Bridgestone racing tires.
On the aero front, the FXX gets a new rear diffuser and rear flaps as well as modifications to the active front spoiler control system, all of which help to increase efficiency by 25 percent.

Check out a LOAD of pics of the “old” FXX when we met her at the Goodwood Hill!

This is the monstrous F430 Scuderia.

Taking on the recent fashion of picking a mind-boggingly fast car, scraping off a couple hundred kilograms and giving it a fancy surname, THIS is the lighter, slightly more powerful version of the already amazing F430.

It weighs a mere 1.250kg and its Ferrari 4.3L V8 produces 510 horsepower instead of 483.

Other improvements are F1-grade gearbox (with 60 milliseconds gearshifts), stability and traction controls.

This jewel has been unveiled by none other than Michael Schumacher, in September at the Frankfurt Auto Show.

So, to sum it all up, if you’re a millionaire track-junkie, it’s time to upgrade.

If you are passionate about Ferrari and want to make some money, just press the “Contact us” button under the site’s logo and tell me why you’d be a good choice as an editor. Also please provide me a sample of your writing skills. Any article or post of under 300 words (even not related to Ferrari) is fine.

Thanks!

Ferrari Deputy Managing Director Amedo Felisa and CEO Luca Cordero di Montezemolo have both denied plans for a new low-end model, but rumors continue to circulate from within the Italian automaker the a new car is most definitely in the works.

The car will reportedly arrive in 2009, and share a platform with the upcoming replacement to the Maserati GT coupe. Like the forthcoming Alfa Romeo 8C, the new Dino will make use of carbon fiber and aluminum to keep weight low. Power will come from a 400 horsepower V8, and annual volume is expected around 4,000 units.

Following hard on the heels of the highly publicised crash in the spring that saw a Swedish businessman crash a Ferrari Enzo in Malibu, California, and wind up serving a jail sentence, and a second smash in August in the US state of Utah, another Enzo has been crashed in dramatic circumstances; this time an example belonging to a Russian Member of the Duma. This report, by Nikolai Sergeev is courtesy of today’s edition of Kommersant.

Suleiman Kerimov, the Russian businessman listed by Forbes as the 72nd richest person in the world, was seriously injured on Saturday in an automobile accident in Nice, France. He lost control of his Ferrari Enzo, which struck a tree at an enormous speed and burst into flames, as he was travelling from the local airport toward the city center. Kerimov was taken by helicopter to the regional burn center at Hopital de la Conception in Marseille. He is now on artificial respiration.

Continues after the jump

The accident occurred at about 3:30 p.m. on a stretch of the Promenade des Anglais where the speed limit is 50 km/h. Kerimov himself was behind the wheel and moving significantly faster then the speed limit when the black Ferrari unexpectedly crossed the sidewalk and struck a tree. Kerimov and his passenger were pulled from the burning car by passersby, who also tried to extinguish the flames using clothing and rugs. It took fire brigades from the Nice airport to dowse the flames, however. The accident caused a two-hour traffic jam on the busy highway.

Police and an emergency helicopter appeared on the scene within moments. The helicopter took the seriously injured Kerimov to the burn centre in Marseille. The female passenger in the car, who was less seriously inured, was taken to Saint Roch Hospital in Nice. A spokesman at the Russian consulate in Marseille, which also serves the Riviera, told Kommersant that they were maintaining “control” over the situation and that official information would be available on Monday. A spokesman for the Nice police commissariat, Kommersant was told that the judicial police investigate road transport incidents. He refused to comment on the speed at which the Ferrari was travelling or to give the name of Kerimov’s passenger. At the Maritime Alps Department police prefecture, they acknowledged that Kerimov may have been the victim of his own driving carelessness.