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Brembo will again be the supplier of brake systems for the Formula 1 World Championship which will have its first round this weekend in Bahrain. Over 48 seasons, F1 racing cars using Brembo brakes have won 27 Drivers’ World Championships, 32 Constructors’ World Championships and 485 GP races.

Over the past 20 years, Brembo has revolutionized the concept of discs used in F1 cars. In the early 2000s, Brembo carbon discs had a thickness of 28 mm with a maximum of 72 holes in a single row and a diameter that exceeded of 10 mm.

Today, the diameter has increased from 278 mm to 328 mm for the front axle carbon disc and from 266 mm to 280 mm for the rear one, with a thickness of 32 mm and a number of holes between 1,000 and 1,100 at the front, while 900 holes at the rear in the most extreme setup in terms of cooling. This year, the FIA has banned drilled pads.

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As we have seen for a long time, the Japanese are masters at making compact cars. It has something to do with their road conditions which are narrow, and also led to the creation of the unique kei class in the country. The initial regulations in 1949 allowed kei car dimensions to be no more than 2.8 metres long and 1 metre wide. By the end of the 1990s, they were allowed to be up to 3.4 metres long and 1.48 metres wide.

Besides kei cars, which could only have 660 cc engines (in Japan), there was also a category of kei trucks which also had the same dimensional restrictions so they were pretty small. The Perodua Kancil was adapted from a Daihatsu kei car called the Mira so you can imagine just how small the kei trucks were.

While Toyota and Nissan did not make kei cars, the other carmakers such as Daihatsu, Mazda, Mitsubishi Motors, Suzuki and Subaru had kei cars as well as trucks (which generally used the same simple platform). They sold well during the 1990s and were even exported to other countries, including the USA, surprisingly.

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Although the Sarawak and Sabah markets for new vehicles are smaller than in Peninsular Malaysia, many car companies still give the East Malaysian region a lot of attention. Those selling vehicles like pick-up trucks and SUVs, in particular, have a large potential market that continues to grow.

The potential of the market in East Malaysia has led companies like Mitsubishi Motors Malaysia (MMM) to develop its sales and aftersales network which now has 14 outlets (7 in Sarawak and 7 in Sabah), with the opening of a new outlet in Sarawak recently.

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Following the appearance of a video on social media showing a car drifting and smoking its tyres near a toll plaza on the Damansara-Shah Alam Elevated Expressway (DASH), PROLINTAS, the concessionaires for the expressway, have issued a statement to say that they will be working with the police to investigate the matter which took place early yesterday morning.

The toll plaza is near Denai Alam on the western end of the 20.1-km expressway which was opened in October 2022. According to the statement, a crowd had gathered in the area leading to the toll plaza and illegal activities took place, referring to the drifting maneuvers of the car (gathering on the highway itself would also be illegal).

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Carmakers work hard to maintain their relationship with customers who have bought their products. They hope that once someone has joined their ‘family’, he or she will continue choosing the brand for subsequent car purchases. To encourage this, customer retention programs are important and offer a variety of benefits for owners.

PHS Automotive Malaysia (PHSAM), which took over as the official distributor of the Audi brand in Malaysia in July last year, has been busy not just on new model plans but also looking at how they can serve existing owners. In particular, they want to give attention to owners with older Audi vehicles that are no longer under warranty.

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After racing at a brand new track in Hyderabad, India, for Round 3 of the ABB Formula E World Championship, the drivers headed southwest to another new venue – Cape Town in South Africa. While not the first Formula E event in Africa as previous events have also been run in Marrakesh, Morocco, since 2016, the Cape Town circuit is the fastest of this 16-race season.

The 2.921 km circuit is around the DHL Stadium, skirting the coastline with the famous Table Mountain as a backdrop. The surface had bumpy braking zones, a tight chicane at Turns 4, 5 and 6 and a pacy, narrow section midway around the lap that would challenge the GEN3 racing cars.

Antonio Felix da Costa drove a storming race from 11th on the grid to his first win for TAG Heuer Porsche in the event, after producing a carbon copy of one of the best moves you’ll ever see for the lead, on two separate occasions. The Season 6 champion returned to form last time out with third in Hyderabad but this was something else in a properly attritional race with just 13 drivers finishing the knife-edge encounter.

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