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German Grand Prix: Lewis Hamilton beats Vettel to pole

Lewis Hamilton in the Mercedes (pictured) takes pole at 2013 German Grand Prix It looks like ‘Tyre-Gate’ has been quashed before it started at the German Grand Prix, with a new tyre from Pirelli, no punctures and teams under order for minimum tyre pressures. But new tyres or not, it’s still Mercedes and Red Bull at the front of the grid, with Lewis Hamilton snatching pole position from Sebastian Vettel in the last throw of the dice in final qualifying by 0.103s. Behind Vettel was Mark Webber in the second Red Bull, followed by Kimi Raikkonen and Romain Grosjean in Lotus and Daniel Ricciardo in the Toro Rosso.

Tesla planning self-driving car

Tesla are planning a self-driving car Now that car makers have been fitting radar and sensors to their cars for some time, which allow stuff like adaptive cruise – which automatically slows behind traffic and can even bring the car to s stop on its own – the race is on to make cars even more autonomous. We’ve reported recently on the Mercedes Intelligent Drive S-Class that negotiated its way – more or less – on a 60 mile route in Germany, and on Volvo’s self-parking system which will take your car in to a multi storey car park by itself, park, and meet you when you return. Google has also been playing with self-driving cars and has even gained permission to run its autonomous cars in California, and now Tesla are joining the fray with plans for an autonomous car in the next three years.

BMW Classic Center opens to customers

Great news for vintage BMW owners: The German automaker has opened its Classic Center to customers. BMW says global demand for its vintage cars and motorcycles is growing. Its 200 clubs have about 200,000 members, and the company estimates there are 600,000 classic BMWs on the road--and those are just the ones the company knows about.