Flavio Briatore legal challenge to FIA ban

Flavio Briatore is launching legal action to get his lifetime ban overturned Flavio Briatore will start legal proceedings in the Paris Tribunal de Grande tomorrow in an attempt to overturn the lifetime ban he received from the FIA for his part in the ‘Singapore-Gate’ race fixing episode, which saw Nelson Piquet Jnr intentionally crashing his car to allow team mate Fernando Alonso to take victory in the 2008 Singapore Grand Prix. Briatore is claiming the life time ban from involvement in any FIA sanctioned Motor Sport – including driver management – is a legal absurdity. And he probably has a point.

Peugeot Ramps Up Production For New 308

FRENCH car maker Peugeot is to crank up production of its new 308 model as demand has rocketed for the recently crowned 2014 European Car of the Year. Built at Peugeot’s Sochaux plant in France, the firm has announced it’s to add a night shift from June, with the result that 600 jobs are being created and output will increase to a total of 1,563 cars per day. The firm has said it has already taken over 60,000 orders, while the decision to up production coincides with the launch this summer of an estate version, the 308 SW.

Mercedes plans electric version of SLS AMG supercar

Huge news at Mercedes-Benz: Engineers from its AMG performance-car offshoot are developing a plug-in electric version of the upcoming SLS supercar as part of a broad-based efficiency program to place the automaker at the leading edge of socially acceptable performance-car motoring. Tentatively planned for production in 2015, the new zero-emission supercar draws heavily on the production version of the yet-to-be-fully-revealed SLS scheduled to get its first public outing at the Frankfurt motor show on Sept. 15.