Arias Pistons 12.5:1 Compression 82mm Bore Honda B-series on 2040-parts.com

Lewis Hamilton takes pole at British Grand Prix – Mercedes front row

Lewis Hamilton & Nico Rosberg (pictured) celebrate their front row at the British Grand Prix Mercedes may have turned in some stunning qualifying laps this year (although their race performance hasn’t really matched up) but Hamilton’s pole at the 2013 British Grand Prix was a stunner – almost half a second (0.452s) ahead of team mate Nico Rosberg. The pole for Hamilton – his first since the Chinese Grand Prix – was a corker (as was Rosberg’s, to be fair) and left the Red Bulls relegated to the second row with Vettel in third and the newly ‘retired’ Mark Webber in fourth. But whether the stunning lap by Hamilton presages an impossible task for Red Bull tomorrow, we’ll have to wait and see.

Bugatti Veyron Grand Sport Vitesse world speed record: Video

We hoped that tease might be for something really interesting and new – perhaps the much rumoured 1600bhp Veyron or even the Galibier –  but it was simply a new world record for an open-topped production car. Impressive, of course, but just more of what we expect from Bugatti, rather than something new and innovative. The new world record for the Vitesse was set at the VW facility at Ehra-Lessien where Chinese driver Anthony Liu took the Veyron Grand Sport Vitesse to 254mph, creating a new world record for an open-topped production car and, more importantly for Bugatti, an excuse to produce a limited run of the Veyron Grand Sport Vitesse WRC Edition with a black and orange paint job for €1.99 million each.

Jaguar XJ_e PHEV Plug-in Hybrid wins RAC Awards

The Jaguar XJ_e PHEV plug-in hybrid has won the RAC ‘Most Energy Efficient Luxury Car Prototype’ and ‘Technical Panel’s Award of Merit’. This year, Jaguar rolled out its experimental hybrid XJ – the Jaguar XJ_e, which we saw at this year’s Goodwood Festival of Speed – which managed to win the award for ‘Most Energy Efficient Luxury Car Prototype’ and also grabbed the Technical Panel’s ‘Award of Merit’ for its clever tech and frugal transit. Jaguar entered three XJ_e PHEV experimental cars in to the FCC, which managed to do the Brighton to London run on just 1.2 litres of petrol and 11kWh of electricity which adds up to an mpg of around 125mpg.