Monaco the BMW Killer

After the Spanish Grand Prix in Barcelona, BMW Sauber were beginning to look toward a brighter finish to the season. They had introduced a massive upgrade to the F1.09 for that race and there was cause to be more positive after looking at the results. Most other teams introduced significant upgrades that weekend as well and although the F1.09 was much better the resulting gain wasn’t as significant.

The next upgrade which includes a new double decker diffuser is to be ready to be introduced for Istanbul Turkey in 2 weeks time. This left the Monaco Grand Prix this past weekend with the upgrades from Spain only. Monaco, with its many slow speed corners will magnify any downforce problems a car has problems by 10 and this was what was awaiting BMW Sauber.

Right from the start on Thursday free practice it was clear Monaco would have the better of the F1.09 no matter who were to drive it. Practice times were very much off the pace and it didn’t matter what setup was used or weather they used the soft or super soft tires. The car was slow.

To make matters worse, the usually bulletproof reliability has hit the team and in the second practice session on Thursday Robert Kubica lost an engine in a cloud of white smoke and flames. This left him short on setup laps for qualifying and quite bitter.

Qualifying on Saturday was no better performance wise. Add to the problems a lot of traffic crammed into this short track and neither Nick Heidfeld or Robert Kubica could advance past Q1 and would start 16th and 17th on the grid.

Come race day it was clear that BMW Sauber were to be back markers for their first time ever. Before the race was 2 laps old Kubica suffered a flat tire and had to pit immediately forcing him way off the back of the Monaco train with little hope of gaining any meaningful positions. It was lap 22 that finally ended his day when on and off brake problems finally forced him to the garage. That left Nick Heidfeld to at least finish the race. Being on a one stop strategy and hoping for attrition ahead of him was his only option to gain position and he did. The ever reliable Nick Heidfeld clawed his way up to 11th where he finished.

This was an embarrassing weekend for the team and at one point a shot of Kubica on a rant next to Heidfeld who continually nodded his agreement showed the building frustration. No one on the team is happy and as Mario Theissen put it “at no point this weekend was our car competitive”.

In 2 weeks is the Turkish Grand Prix in Istanbul and this is where the new double decker diffuser will be introduced. If the package works the F1.09 should gain quite a bit of downforce through the corners and improve race pace.

MotorTrend calls the BMW M3 “The World’s Greatest All-Around Car”

The 2009 BMW M3 gets an endorsement from the popular auto magazine MotorTrend who declared the luxury sporty sedan, “The World’s Greatest All-Around Car”. Of course, not all of you might agree with this statement and that’s perfectly fine, but we still suggest reading the MotorTrend article and find out the reasons behind this powerful statement they have made.

The BMW M3 has always being considered one of the best all around sports cars ever built and the competitors Lexus IS-F, Audi RS4 and Mercedes-Benz C63 AMG have always been looking to threaten the M3’s position. Recently even the Cadillac CTS-V started to be considered a direct competitor.

But let’s see what MotorTrend has to say:

I took our long-term 2009 BMW M3 sedan out again yesterday, a long afternoon drive and then home, and more than ever I’m convinced this is the single finest all-around automobile in the world. Sure, myriad other cars have their talents—the scream and Gucci-chic of a Ferrari, the awesome power of the ZR1, the try-and-stop-me capability of a Land Rover, the elegance and comfort of a big Benz. But probably no other car combines so many virtues—speed, handling, good looks, roominess, practicality—into one package. And few cars of any kind are executed so well. Driving the M3 is an absolutely blissful experience, flooding your brain with dopamine as if you were arriving to courtside seats at the Lakers game with Jennifer Connelly on your arm.

BMW 135i tii featured in the Blur racing game

The beautiful BMW 135i tii model is making its way into the games world as well. The latest racing game developed by Bizarre Creatings under the Blur name, features the sporty and good looking 135i tii, a car that made the news headlines when it was unveiled two years ago at the Tokyo Auto Show.

As BMW named it back then, the 1 Series tii is a young interpretation of classic BMW brand values with specific requirements for motosport. The tii design follows the tradition of BMW’s compact, light and extremely sporting coupes.  BMW 1 Series tii underlines the extremely sporting potential and the youthful, temperamental character of the BMW 1 Series.

Since the official unveiling, we have seen many unofficial versions of the tii, built by BMW fans with parts ordered from the BMW Performance Parts catalogue. We have even seen a tii replica on sale on eBay.

So to us it was a pleasant surprise to see the BMW 135i tii featured in a racing game, for the first time as far as we know.

The racer will feature licensed cars, as well as real-world locations like Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Barcelona. Blur will also include a number of arcade style power-ups like speed boosts and the ability to blast other cars with bursts of energy. Blur is also all about driving social network and plans to create a large community behind it. As you would expect in such game, there will be plenty multiplayer options, online playing and four player split-screen mode.

The game will be available on Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC.

Wouldn’t be interesting to host our own Blur championship with our readers competing against each other?

BMW 330d xDrive Sedan

For those of us that live in the U.S., the BMW diesel choices are limited at this time, with the 335d and X5d being the only models available for us. While we hope that in the near future we will see more diesel engines here and implicitly giving us the opportunity to test drive them, for now we will just have to rely on our European friends to provide some reviews of diesel powered BMWs available there.

Today, the fellows at Autoevolution sent us in their latest test drive of the popular BMW 330 xDrive Sedan.

Obviously, the 330d, even in xDrive form, lacks some of the spirit of the 330i, and we’re talking mainly about the gas-powered model’s ability to rev through the roof to give its occupants a glimpse of the real driving pleasure, as the BMW purists might say. The three-liter diesel on the other hand totally makes up for that with its gargantuan torque which is felt at almost any speed, in any gear.

While cruising on a small stretch of empty road at about 1900 rpm we “opened her up” a little bit and in of just a few seconds we went from doing 130 km/h (81 mph) to almost 180 km/h (112 mph). And all that while being in sixth gear! Our photographer was most impressed with this fact from the passenger seat, but then again he drives a 1.6-liter diesel, so he should be pretty easy to please from this point of view.

In almost any diesel, modern or oldschool, the low range punch usually prevails over any other speed-inducing sensation. The sequential turbocharger setup of the highly-touted three-liter diesel found in some BMWs changed that. Our test car wasn’t equipped with that engine, but with a new one, which in theory should be positioned lower on the “sportiness scale”, since it’s “only” a single-turbo.

Turns out it isn’t (Ed, positioned lower). Although it has almost 40 hp, 60 Nm (44.2 lb ft) and a turbocharger less than its big brother, our test car is actually faster to 100 km/h (62 mph) than the 335d. To put things into a bigger perspective, the 330d xDrive is faster than the first generation M3 to 100 km/h by almost a full second. Talk about efficient torque distribution! This engine is all about low-range AND mid-range punch, unlike other oil burners, which brings it very close to a turbocharged gasoline counterpart.

Plus, compared to “that other, real type” of combustion, the 330d takes much less effort to run at the same speed and on the same road. It still has that laid-back attitude of your everyday diesel – hence the very frugal fuel economy – but it can also provide neck-snapping acceleration in almost any gear thanks to its massive 520 Nm (383.5 lb ft) torque figure, strangely available from 1750 to 3000 rpm.

Gold BMW M5

Well, we have seen a lot of strange things posted on our blog in the last few years, right? I mean, we saw an orange painted M5 and a wannabe BMW, but have you ever seen a gold plated M5? I didn’t think so….neither did we.

So this gold plated BMW M5 was spotted on the roads of Moscow and quite frankly, it simply makes my head spinning just by looking at it. The  car has been creating a lot of buzz all over the web, some believe it’s an insult to a BMW car, others, more extravagant, like the show off look of this car and the yellow shine that makes it stand out.

Hopefully this one won’t be carjacked like the gold plated Porsche in Moscow last year.

As far as I myself, if I were to own a beautiful, classy M5, I think I will just leave it the way it is, no need to modify a car that has all it needs.

More photos after the jump

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