When not racing his Alfa Romeo P3, giving the Germans a bloody nose at the Nürburgring or taking photographs, Tazio Nuvolari—or rather, his spirit turned muse—was an inspiration for pop. The greatest hit on Italian singer-songwriter Lucio Dalla’s 1976 album Automobili is named after the great man in the yellow sweater.

While Italian is unfortunately a language I do not speak, the undoubtedly wonderful lyrics are given a further twist toward great fun with the use of Google Translate. Witness:

Nuvolari is small in stature, Nuvolari is below normal

Nuvolari has fifty pounds of bone Nuvolari has a great body

Nuvolari’s hands are like claws,

Nuvolari was a talisman against the evils

His look is of a hawk for the children,

his muscles have muscles exceptional!

The birds lose their wings in the air as it passes Nuvolari!

When running Nuvolari frightening …

because the engine is ferocious roar while cutting the plain

“The birds lose their wings in the air as it passes Nuvolari!” Brilliant, brilliant stuff. And now it’s time to sing along!

In front of that great white rooster tail is the A2 version of the original Audi Quattro, that snarling, five cylinder Group B menace which would, in Sport Quattro S1 form, prove even more devastating on every conceivable road surface.

The A2 was no slowpoke either: with little more than half the horsepower of the S1, it was good enough for Blomqvist to win five of the 1984 World Rally Championship’s twelve races, including the 1984 Acropolis Rally, where these pictures were taken. Here’s footage of the race, unfortunately with the soundtrack toned down:

But do not despair if your aim is to fill your home or office with the turbocharged pop of Group B. Stig Blomqvist has been racing non-stop since the early Scandinavian flick days of the little two-stroke Saab 96. His senior years hinder neither his racing ability in general nor his skills at handling the Sport Quattro S1 in particular. Observe with volume at 11:

Photo Credit: Audi

The beautifully filmed video, produced by the Mini company itself, intersperses vintage racing footage with the two merry old geezers driving their Mini JCW on winter roads with the top down. It does have a share of great laughs.

The original racing Mini Cooper S is almost unbelievable as a race car by modern numbers: in seriously upgraded form from the standard car, it developed all of 70 HP, which cut its 0-60 time from a glacial 19 seconds to an equally glacial 13 seconds. But on the twisting course of the rally, however glaciated it was in the middle of January, these numbers had no relation whatsoever to performance: what mattered was light weight and handling, both of which the Mini had in spades.

Mini, celebrating its 50th birthday, has since become a Bavarian company. While the John Cooper Works convertible Messrs. Hopkirk and Aaltonen take for a spin has three times the horsepower of their original race cars and would out-accelerate a Lamborghini Miura, you do wonder whether it could race against more powerful machines like its diminutive predecessor (not).

Photo Credit: Mini

As befits a racing driver who drove cars with thin skins of aluminum, the blueberry cheesecake we made him is garnished with metallic bits of decorative candy and strips of aluminum foil. It’s a very easy cake to make: if you’ve ever set foot in a kitchen, you can probably make your own. Head over to Hyperleggera for the recipe.

Photo Credit: Audi AG (Rosemeyer doing a burnout in his Auto Union Type C at the 1937 Donington Grand Prix) and the author (cake)

So to put it in simple numbers, the team put together a 4,000-part race car in 21 hours and 45 minutes. Simply brilliant. Here's a few slugs from Patrón Highcroft Racing:

Patrón Highcroft Racing's won their "race" to make the grid and maintain the team's championship assault after taking a bare tub into a complete racecar in less than 24 hours today.

After a horrifying crash for Scott Sharp on Thursday, the tub of the team's Acura ARX-02a was badly damaged and Honda Performance Development flew out a replacement overnight from its headquarters in California.

Beginning the build at 8:00am on Friday morning preparing parts, the Patrón Highcroft squad kicked off when the tub arrived at 9:20am and worked throughout the night to build up a new machine for today's 12th running of the annual Petit Le Mans endurance classic.

The car was ready to roll at 5:45am the following morning - in time for the team to take part in the morning warm-up. Heavy rain overnight actually pushed the warm-up back - allowing the team to take a breath before beginning race day.

The Build:

The Crash:

THE BUILD RECAP / TIME-LINE

Pre-petit work list items: 190

Acura ARX-02a Statistics:
Chassis mechanical parts: 4000
Chassis electrical parts: 250
Engine parts: 100 (excluding internals of engine)
Gearbox parts: 350
Parts with tracked life: 1000 (excluding internals of engine)
Custom hardware (fasteners, o-rings, bearings): 450

Rebuild Statistics:
Parts reused: about 10%

Rebuild Timeline
(times are when tasks were completed, unless otherwise noted)
Thursday
3:43 PM - Accident
4:15 PM - Damaged assessment finished
4:45 PM - Spare part serial numbers allocated for car build
5:00 PM - Finalized arrangements to ship spare tub
6:00 PM - Spare tub picked up by freight service in California
6:45 PM - Damaged car stripped, reusable parts identified
11:00 PM - Replacement parts prepared and arranged for assembly
12:00 AM - Team back to hotel

Friday
7:10 AM - Spare tub arrives at Atlanta airport, met by team members
7:30 AM - Breakfast
8:00 AM - Begin preparation for car build, organize and layout assemblies
9:30 AM - Spare, bare tub arrives at track
11:00 AM - Tub preparation finished
12:00 PM - Lunch
11:30 PM - Fresh engine fitted
1:30 PM - Fresh gearbox fitted
6:00 PM - Dinner
8:00 PM - Four corners fitted on car
9:00 PM - Race spare preparation begins
11:45 PM - Hydraulic/fuel/electronic systems tested

Saturday
1:00 AM - Engine fired
4:30 AM - Car on ground
5:45 AM - Set up finished
6:45 AM - Race strategy meeting
8:15 AM - Warmup / Practice Session

[via Axis Of Oversteer, Patron Highcroft Racing, GrandTouringPrototype.com]

When they do, they still look frightening. This is no doubt a function of us being used to road races held behind seven layers of barbed wire and security and the pure spectacle of seeing high-tech race cars decked out to resemble European family hatchback go full throttle on dirt roads, surrounded by nothing by wildflowers and humans.

The above video was created by the Polish videographer Maciej Puczyński and is set to a wicked electronic remix of a Bloc Party song. Enjoy!

Photo Credit: ARIS MESSINIS/AFP/Getty Images

Both drivers suffered concussions with Philippe undergoing surgery on his foot at Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital, said IndyCar spokesman John Griffin. Both drivers were expected to remain in the hospital at least overnight, he added.

The crash started just past Turn 3 on the 12-turn Infineon course when Philippe spun out and came to rest while still on the track. The turn features a slight crest and Philippe stopped just past, or below, that crest.

Another driver, E.J. Viso, then came over the crest and crashed into the front wheels of Philippe's car, and moments later Power followed and also slammed into Philippe's car, littering the track with debris. [LATimes]

So who'll replace Schumi, who in turn was set to replace the injured Felipe Massa, at Valencia? We're told veteran Ferrari test driver Luca Badoer has been handed the chance to compete in next week's European Grand Prix.

Badoer, the Maranello main test driver since 1998, hasn't competed in an F1 race since the 1999 Japanese Grand Prix for Minardi, but the team says he has been given the Valencia drive as reward for his work at the team. (Hat tip to Nathaniel!)

[via CNN]

Photo Credit: AFP

Spurgeon’s work was published in the Times over the race weekend but if you’re in the mood for a lot of direct quotes from the man who has made F1 what it currently is, Spurgeon has uploaded a transcript of his chat. Here’s a choice bit or two:

On people he admired or considered role models:

I’m a big, big, and have always been a big, big supporter of Mr. Ferrari, when he was alive, he was a special person. But in those days, I mean, they were entrepreneurs. So you know, he had the same sort of background as I had. He was a good used car dealer. And like Colin [Chapman, founder of Lotus]. All those people when we started Formula One bringing it to what it is.

On racing in the first F1 race at Silverstone:

Yeah, I was in the race. In a Formula 3 car. With Stirling Moss and Harry Schell and Peter Collins. But I used to race motorcycles. So I’ve always raced something.

Read the rest at About.com, including his thoughts on leaders versus dictators.

Photo Credit: Ryan Pierse/Getty Images

Together, these three men have become world champions eleven times: Senna in 1988, 1990 and 1991, Juan Manuel Fangio in 1951, 1954, 1955, 1956 and 1957 with Sir Jack Brabham in 1959, 1960 and 1966.

Senna’s manner of taking the 1990 title is why Alain Prost refused to be on the picture. After complaints of his pole position being on the dirty side of the track, Senna rammed Prost’s Ferrari—and his McLaren with it—off the road in the first corner, as seen here from Nigel Mansell’s point of view:

To appreciate the sheer title density of the photograph, consider that it took until Michael Schumacher’s decision on Wednesday to fill in for the injured Felipe Massa for the entire current grid to have as many world titles as the three gentlemen pictured. Schumacher’s seven add to Alonso’s two and Hamilton’s and Räikkönen’s one each to bring the total to eleven.

Photo Credit: DAVID CALLOW/AFP/Getty Images

Nelson Piquet drives the Brabham BT52

Fire will be a recurring pattern of this gallery. The flames pictured here belch forth from the Brabham BT52, a Gordon Murray-designed, Nelson Piquet-driven car which took the 1983 world championship. It was powered by the BMW M10 engine, a lovely exercice in engineering insanity.

BMW M10 Engine

Probably no other engine had a 26-year career during which it progressed from 75 HP in the BMW 1500 Neue Klasse of 1961 to 1500 HP in the Brabham BT52 Formula One race car. The basis of this twentyfold increase in power was an incredible little 1.5-liter Baron Alex von Falkenhausen design, turbocharged to the ionosphere for F1.

Legend has it that BMW’s motorsports engineers chose for their F1 units engine blocks which had already accumulated 60,000+ miles on them—and that they urinated on them in the factory.

Photo Credit: BMW Historisches Archiv

Nelson Piquet and Gordon Murray

Piquet was the man who drove the BMW-powered Brabham racers. Gordon Murray? He designed them. After Formula One, he would go on to create the sublime BMW-powered McLaren F1, which was the last road car to win the 24 Hours of Le Mans—in 1995.

Photo Credit: joosten

Andrea de Cesaris

More fire! This is the Brabham BMW of 1987 at Silverstone, driven by unlucky Andrea de Cesaris, who started in 208 Formula One grands prix without a single win. The fire you see was the result of a broken fuel line, which ended de Cesaris’s race.

Photo Credit: Chris Cole/Allsport

Fire! Fire! Fire!

Before we ban Beavis from Jalopnik’s editorial systems, one more photo of a flame-happy Brabham. Most likely driven by Nelson Piquet.

The Brabham BT52 from above

The arrow shape of Nelson Piquet’s 1983 championship winner was dictated by the sudden banning of ground effects at the end of the 1982 season.

Because regulations for 1983 specified flat underbodies, the wide sidepods of ground effects cars suddenly became wings and had to be sheared off.

Gordon Murray was the most efficient shearer of them all: he designed the arrow-shaped BT52 over a scarce three months.

Suitcase signed by Piquet and Murray

For 1984, Gordon Murray developed the BT52 into the BT53. It was no worse a design, but BMW’s mad turbocharged M10’s couldn’t reliably finish races. Piquet won only two races in the season and had to retire from an incredible 9 of 16 total.

Photo Credit: joosten

Nelson Piquet leads Ayrton Senna in the 1984 Dallas Grand Prix

Here’s the Brabham BT53 in action in Dallas. Both Piquet and Senna would retire from the race, which was won by Keke Rosberg.

Photo Credit: twm1340/Flickr

Jacques Villeneuve at the 2006 French Grand Prix

BMW was out of Formula One for many years, only to acquire the Sauber team of Switzerland and return as a factory outfit. Over their four years in F1, they have experimented with a number of weird and wonderful aerodynamics elements, including the Twin Towers seen here, which were designed to flick air to the car’s rear.

Nick Heidfeld and Jacques Villeneuve drove the cars to 8th and 11th place, respectively. The towers were banned after the race as officials had postulated it would interfere with the drivers’ vision.

Photo Credit: Paul Gilham/Getty Images

Robert Kubica’s crash at the 2007 Canadian Grand Prix

In their second year in F1, BMW would be involved in perhaps the most dramatic crash in modern times. On lap 26, Robert Kubica’s car clipped Jarno Trulli’s Toyota and became airborne at 150 MPH. Most of the car disintegrated to a fine powder of carbon fiber as it tumbled down the track, subjecting the Pole to 75 g’s of deceleration but saving his life.

BMW’s other driver Nick Heidfeld finished second in the race which marked Lewis Hamilton’s first F1 win.

Photo Credit: Paul Gilham/Getty Images

Another view of Robert Kubica’s 2007 crash

This is how Kubica’s BMW came to rest after his big crash. You can see that he is still in the car, with his feet poking out. In a testament to the gigantic strength of the carbon fiber monocoque, he suffered nothing worse than a sprained ankle.

Photo Credit: DAVID BOILY/AFP/Getty Images

Robert Kubica wins the 2008 Canadian Grand Prix

What a way to return to the scene of his 150 MPH crash a year later: this is BMW team principal Mario Theissen hugging Robert Kubica after he took his and BMW’s first grand prix win at the 2008 Canadian Grand Prix.

Photo Credit: Mark Thompson/Getty Images

BMW team principal Mario Theissen

Theissen is seen here celebrating BMW’s only grand prix win at the 2008 Canadian Grand Prix. Perhaps the photo’s slightly pornographic allusions also go to show how right the late and great LJK Setright was when he called the spraying of champagne the “vulgarian display of disrespect for this princely drink” in his 2002 book Drive On!

Photo Credit: Paul Gilham/Getty Images

Nick Heidfeld at St. Moritz, Switzerland

BMW Sauber has shown a curious taste for Formula One stunts in 2007. They were all performed by Nick Heidfeld, seen here on the frozen surface of Lake St. Moritz, Switzerland, on February 4, 2007.

Photo Credit: Scott Barbour/Getty Images

Nick Heidfeld drives his BMW F1 car on the Nürburgring Nordschleife

No Formula One car had set foot on the old Nordschleife since Niki Lauda’s infernal 1976 crash at Bergwerk corner. After 31 years, Heidfeld returned to the scene of countless grands prix in his 2007 racing car to run three laps. In a raised car on the bumpy track, not going flat out, he managed a time of 8:34.

More fire! More fire!

This has become the defining image of BMW in what has turned out to be their last season in Formula One. The man in the car is Robert Kubica and the picture was taken during qualifying at this year’s Bahrain Grand Prix, which Jenson Button won.

Photo Credit: BERTRAND GUAY/AFP/Getty Images

Barely eight months after Honda called it quits, another manufacturer of white cars is out of Formula One as BMW throws in the towel at the end of this season. What will this mean for the all-conquering Brawn GP?

It was a late March day in Melbourne and Robert Kubica was breathing down hard on Jenson Button’s neck in this season’s first grand prix. Leading the race with three laps to go, Button was slowing down in his yet-unproven ex-Honda on supersoft tires as Kubica crept ever closer in his BMW. The young Pole—like Button, a winner of a single grand prix—was at last set to launch into a season of victories.

Of course he then tangled up with Sebastian Vettel in the Red Bull and it was all downhill for both him and BMW. Button and Vettel would go on to win 8 of this year’s 10 grands prix, while Kubica’s best result was 7th in Turkey. Apart from a lucky second place for teammate Nick Heidfeld in the wacky red-flagged Malaysian monsoon race, the BMW team—in their fourth season as a factory team in F1—are permanent backmarkers in the 2009 season, bringing up the rear with Force India and Toro Rosso.

They have decided to put themselves out of their misery. BMW will go out fighting but not come back to contest the 2010 season.

“This was a difficult decision for us, but it’s a resolute step in view of our company’s strategic realignment,” was the jolt of corporatese offered by Dr. Norbert Reithofer, chairman of the board of management of BMW, to the BBC.

Team principal Mario Theissen had this to say:

We, the employees in Hinwil and Munich, would all have liked to continue this ambitious campaign and show that this season was just a hiccup following three successful years. But I can understand why this decision was made from a corporate perspective.

Launched as a factory team for the 2006 season, BMW had originally given themselves three years to win the world championship. They finished second in 2007 after McLaren was disqualified and came in third last year—second only to McLaren and Ferrari—with several podium finishes and a grand prix victory by Robert Kubica in Montreal, his and BMW’s only.

One cannot help but wonder if the Bavarian-Swiss squad will try to make lemonade of the situation the way Ross Brawn has.

Brawn’s Honda team suffered through an ignominious 2008 season at the end of which Honda decided to quit Formula One altogether. Over the winter, Brawn managed to acquire the team’s assets and drivers from Honda, launched it under his own name with the car they had been developing since November 2007 and went on to win 6 of this season’s 10 grand prix with Jenson Button. After 10 out of 17 races, Brawn GP leads both the driver’s and the constructor’s championship.

So let’s keep our fingers crossed for Mario Theissen and his mercurial Pole. Formula One cannot make do without such a well-groomed mustache as Theissen’s:

Source: BBC. Photo Credit: BERTRAND GUAY/AFP/Getty Images, DIMITAR DILKOFF/AFP/Getty Images, Paul Gilham/Getty Images, OLIVER LANG/AFP/Getty Images

The 69-year-old, who had last month hinted he might go back on an earlier decision to stand down, revealed his decision in a letter to FIA members.

"I have decided to reconfirm my decision - I will not be a candidate in October," Mosley wrote.

Mosley has endorsed former Ferrari team boss Jean Todt as his successor. Yes, because luckily Todt's won't, you know, be rooting for any one team, right? Oh wait, yeah, he might be.

We've received a copy of the letter from FIA and have republished images of the scanned PDF file below along with a quick biography on Mosley. Click next to read through the whole shebang.

Max Rufus Mosley (born 13 April 1940) is president of the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA), a non-profit association that represents the interests of motoring organisations and car users worldwide. The FIA is also the governing body for Formula One and other international motorsports.

A former barrister and amateur racing driver, Mosley was a founder and co-owner of March Engineering, a successful racing car constructor and Formula One racing team. He looked after legal and commercial issues for the company between 1969 and 1977. In the late 1970s, Mosley became the official legal adviser to the Formula One Constructors Association (FOCA), the body which represents Formula One constructors. In this role he drew up the first version of the Concorde Agreement, which settled a long-standing dispute between FOCA and the Fédération Internationale du Sport Automobile (FISA), the then governing body of Formula One. Mosley was elected president of FISA in 1991 and became president of the FIA, FISA's parent body, in 1993. Mosley has identified his major achievement as FIA President as the promotion of the European New Car Assessment Programme (Euro NCAP or Encap), a European car safety performance assessment programme. He has also promoted increased safety and the use of green technologies in motor racing. In 2008, stories about his sex life appeared in the British press. Despite the controversy, Mosley retained his position.

Mosley is the son of Oswald Mosley, former leader of the British Union of Fascists (BUF), and Diana Mitford. He was educated in France, Germany and Britain before going on to attend university at Christ Church, Oxford, where he graduated with a degree in physics. In his teens and early twenties Mosley was involved with his father's post-war political party, the Union Movement (UM). He has said that the association of his surname with fascism stopped him from developing his interest in politics further, although he briefly worked for the Conservative Party in the early 1980s. [via Wikipedia]

Photo Credit: Paul Gilham / Getty Images Sport

[via FIA]

[via FIA]