Nico Rosberg 5th, Michael Schumacher 9th

MERCEDES GP PETRONAS drivers Nico Rosberg and Michael Schumacher qualified in fifth and ninth places today for the first Korean Grand Prix which takes place at the Korean International Circuit in Yeongam tomorrow. Both drivers felt they got the best out of their MGP W01 cars around the new 5.6km track with Nico having a particularly good lap to achieve fifth place and line up on the third row of the grid. “I’m very pleased with fifth place and it is the best possible position that we could have achieved today. It’s nice to be ahead of one of the McLaren and Ferrari cars and also Robert who has been very close to us recently. We’re in a good position for the race tomorrow. “I had a busy qualifying getting everything together with some changes we made but I’m quite happy with my position. There was no room for much more today. The team did a great job getting both cars into Q3 and we will be starting from the better side of the track in my opinion. I’m quite optimistic for tomorrow and we should score some points, especially as our set-up is focused on the race. “We have seen another solid performance from the team and our drivers here with Nico putting in a particularly good lap in qualifying today to achieve fifth place. The team have got the most out of the car and adapted well to the new circuit.

Allowing the operator to configure the vehicle to its mission, Jaguar offers Normal, Dynamic and Winter driving modes. Switching between the three alters transmission shift points, engine response, Adaptive Dynamics active suspension and stability control intervention. Normal mode is good under nearly all driving conditions, with Dynamic only needed when the driver wants to aggressively tackle some big sweepers. The XJL is a very long sedan with an impressive wheelbase. While this translates to a comfortable ride, its dynamic characteristics never cease to remind the driver of each and every one of its 206.8 inches of length. Outward visibility is challenging, especially to the rear, and the turning radius is a large 41.7 feet (that equates to a three-point turn in many cases). Yet pilot it down the highway and it glides effortlessly, seemingly forever. Jaguar fits the XJL with a sizeable 21.7-gallon fuel tank, and that translates to a sphincter-squeezing range of about 500 miles based on the EPA-calculated highway economy of 24 miles per gallon. The Brit's build quality is impressive, and the supercharged V6 is the perfect mate to both its transmission and the lightweight chassis.

If asked to choose the Jaguar's worst attributes, the climate control system would be at the top of my list. Southern California was experiencing a heatwave during my test, and the vehicle couldn't muster a properly frigid blow on its Auto setting (I had to manually bump up the fan speed constantly). The Jaguar does not best its competitors in any single category, but I am still a big fan - the XJL AWD model with its supercharged V6 completely won me over. The others in this high-end segment appeal to customers with innovation, technology or value, while the Jaguar relies on its styling and alluring British character to seal the deal. The driver is offered competent and capable driving dynamics, while passengers are captivated and charmed with the familiar trappings of traditional luxury. The XJ is for those who understand and embrace its time-honored elegance. As I told many family and friends during my week with the big Brit, this is not a vehicle for everyone - it is transportation for nobility.

The system has various other controls depending on installation. On most models, the vacuum is not tied to the proportioning valve until some throttle is taken up, closing a vacuum microswitch on the valve cover. This keeps the vacuum high at idle which keeps some models in second gear until throttle take-up. It also reduces the closed throttle downshift to an almost undetectable level. The most important modification came with the 1985 model and is continued on all subsequent ones. It involved the addition of a vacuum amplifier to the system (see Fig. 7). The amplifier takes a large vacuum supply, the proportioning vacuum signal and a boost signal and creates the final signal to the transmission. This device did two things. First, it incorporated the input of boost to further tailor the load control of the modulator vacuum signal. The vacuum at the modulator now starts high - 12-17 in. As boost builds, the vacuum is further reduced to zero only at full boost. The second thing this system did was reduce the sensitivity of the final signal to small changes in the proportioned signal.

When this signal went straight to the tranny, a 10-20% fluctuation due to linkage or vacuum conditions (the orifices are very susceptible to diesel soot restriction in any of the orifices) caused great changes in shifting. With the amplifier, the proportioned signal is just one input and the output averages out the variations. Shifting in diesels was never better at this point. Since these systems are designed to fashion the shift characteristic to load through basically mechanical linkages, it is imperative that throttle movements give appropriate power output. In other words, if the engine doesn't run right it will shift wrong. This always has been the case, but is especially true in these systems. For these fuel systems to deliver the extra fuel required with boost (more air needs more fuel), an aneroid is attached to the governor mechanism. It alters fuel metering due to both altitude changes and intake boost changes.