Motor Racing-Mercedes Can Take Sequence Of Success Into Double Figures

Motor Racing-Mercedes Can Take Sequence Of Success Into Double Figures

June 19 (Reuters) - Formula One champions Mercedes can stretch their unbeaten run into double figures in France on Sunday while rivals Ferrari and Sebastian Vettel still chafe at being denied victory in Canada two weeks ago. Lewis Hamilton, winner last year at Le Castellet's Paul Ricard circuit from pole position, has won five races this season while Finnish team mate Valtteri Bottas has taken the other two. Add in Hamilton's two victories at the end of last year, after winning his fifth championship, and Mercedes are set to match their 2016 run of 10 successive wins and Ferrari's 2002 sequence of success. Only McLaren, with 11 in a row in a near-perfect 1988 season with champions Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost, have strung together a better run in the modern era. It nearly ended in Montreal, however, with Vettel on pole and finishing first before a five second penalty for running off and rejoining in an unsafe manner demoted the German to second behind Hamilton. Ferrari have sought a review of the stewards' decision, apparently promising a new element that could yet provide a twist. Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff saw Canada as a wake-up call regardless, not least because of reliability problems the team battled right up to the start. Hamilton, on 78 career wins and edging ever closer to Michael Schumacher's record 91, made a rare mistake in Canada when he hit the wall in Friday practice. Briton, now 29 points clear of Bottas and 62 ahead of Vettel, after a race dominated by the Ferrari controversy. With huge run-off areas, Le Castellet should be more comfortable. Montreal was the second race this season that Ferrari should have won, with Charles Leclerc on pole in Bahrain but denied victory by a late engine problem, but they will not be favourites in France. Ferrari team principal Mattia Binotto.

The car is packed full of features and customization. It has themes and different screen setups. It has an augmented navigation option that is a killer app. When using guided navigation, the car will display the video feed from the front-facing camera on the center screen (which is usually used for parking and driver assistance) and then overlay the navigation instructions on top of that. It鈥檚 downright amazing to see in action and will result in far fewer missed turns. Additionally, the car has a stunning digital dashboard that sets a benchmark in how these kinds of gauge clusters should be done. It has an incredible amount of variability and is controllable via the left touchpad on the steering wheel, while the touchpad on the right can also control the center screen. You can get the driver鈥檚 screen to display an entire map, or just put that map in a small segment of the screen.

You can see media information with album covers, or important data like trip and fuel economy information. In comparison, the rest of the cabin is just OK. Design-wise, it鈥檚 pretty nice, with stylish circular vents and well-placed buttons and toggle switches. The materials in the vehicle still feel a bit below the standard of what you鈥檇 expect in a Mercedes, but they鈥檙e not painfully cheap-feeling. The A-Class has good headroom throughout the cabin, although that will likely change in the transition from a hatchback body style to a sedan. There鈥檚 a big, spacious trunk with a wide opening that features 370 liters of space, which is good enough for a golf bag. Adding to the versatility of the vehicle, the rear seats fold down with a 40/20/40 split. It鈥檚 a huge deal for such a small car to feature so much impressive technology. It鈥檚 even more impressive that it鈥檚 also affordable. 35,000 mark or less, which is a pretty strong argument against other premium compacts. Interestingly enough, this is the first time the A-Class hatchback is heading to North America, as it will be on Canadian roads this fall. Americans won鈥檛 be getting the hatchback, but are more likely to get the recently revealed A-Class sedan. It鈥檚 also important to recall that the last A-Class was the basis of the GLA and CLA. If those nameplates continue, the new A-Class is foreshadowing a lot of important products. With the new 2019 Mercedes-Benz A-Class, the automaker has completely rewritten the luxury compact car. Not only is it good looking, but it鈥檚 filled with technology that you can鈥檛 find anywhere else in this industry, let alone at this price point. The various refinements also add up to make this a very interesting car, and one that is easy to recommend.

Then using voice control, the driver can enter addresses into the navigation system, play songs saved on the smartphone or make calls, all while the drivers鈥?hands stay safely on the steering wheel. The newly designed instrument panel with an up to 8-inch high-resolution colour display also contributes to the driver鈥檚 optimal information overview. In addition to the classic readouts like speed, rpm and fuel tank level, further driver-defined details on navigation, smartphone use and audio options are directly in the driver鈥檚 line of sight. Similar to the infotainment system display in the centre console, the most important functions can be called up here on the starting screen and then the sub-menus selected. To do this, the driver uses the buttons on the right side of the steering wheel. The steering wheel buttons on the left are to control safety functions such as cruise control or the speed limiter. So Insignia drivers not only benefit from a multi-functional, customisable infotainment system, but also from an instrument panel with a centrally located, colour display that can be tailored to individual needs and preferences.

A state-of-the-art Bose Sound System, with nine loudspeakers, a sub-woofer, four broadband loudspeakers, tweeters and a digital sound processor, is available as a 拢525 option. The new Insignia鈥檚 cabin offers access to a host of advanced driving safety and assistance features, many radar and camera-based. Vauxhall鈥檚 innovative system improves driving safety and significantly eases driving strain at night by automatically optimising light beam patterns for different driving situations, road and weather conditions. High Beam Assist (HBA), which automatically engages high and low beam by using a forward-facing camera to detect approaching traffic or a vehicle ahead. Adaptive Cruise Control (ACC) helps the driver keep to a selected speed, while always maintaining a safe distance to the vehicle(s) in front. In combination with automatic transmission, ACC will now also bring the car to a complete stop and automatically re-start it. The system includes Forward Collision Alert (FCA) with automatic Collision Imminent Braking (CIB) to mitigate a potential impact. A speed limiter function allows the driver to select a maximum vehicle speed, a useful feature in town or city driving to prevent a 30 or 50mph speed limit being inadvertently exceeded.