Drive Wire: June 1, 2016

A weekend full of racing, the new Top Gear, Google’s car progress, display suglasses, and downhill mountain biking.

byThe Drive Staff|
Drive Wire: June 1, 2016
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What’s up guys, it’s Marisa Hunter and this is Drive Wire for Wednesday, June 1.

If you’re anything like us here at Drive Wire you’re just now coming back down to earth after an amazing weekend of racing. There was hail on the track at the Nurburgring 24 hours, rookie Alexander Rossi won at Indy, and the utterly amazing Lewis Hamilton scored his first win of 2016 in the rain at Monaco. Hamilton took advantage of a pit-stop foul-up by pole-sitter Daniel Riccardio to take the lead on lap 32. Hamilton was able to fend off Riccardio for the rest of the race, including one brilliant door-slamming move through the tabac corner, to take the flag just as his well-worn ultra-soft tires were about to fly off the rims. Hamilton moves into second place in the championship, 82 points behind his teammate Nico Rosberg. Still, the terrible crash at Lime Rock Park this weekend is a reminder to all of us that racing is extremely dangerous and our thoughts go out to Andrew Palmer and Jorge De La Torre.

Turning to the star-overstuffed drama that is the new Top Gear, where host Chris Evans confirmed that the Ferrari LaFerrari Spyder is coming soon. Evans, along with swearing chef and red-car-enthusiast guest Gordon Ramsay, showed off a LaFerrari Spyder key and said that 150 examples of the topless hypercar would be built. It’s the first mention of the Spyder outside of official announcements from Ferrari HQ in Maranello. In any case, hold on to your extremely expensive hats, folks.

In self-driving car news, Google has begun work on a 53,000 square foot autonomous car facility in the Detroit suburb of Novi, Michigan. Google says they are “laying down roots” in Michigan, where they will be developing and refining self-driving technology. The location of the new facility gives them access to corporate partner Chrysler’s extensive four-season testing infrastructure as well as the extensive Detroit-area engineering talent pool. No word on how long before the facility is up and running – it looks like it’s pretty much an empty factory at the moment. You certainly can’t say Google isn’t taking this car thing seriously.

Turning to gear, we have an extremely cool gadget for you cyclists out there. The Solos is a heads-up display in sunglasses form, delivering speed, distance, cadence, and heart rate information, and more right into your own personal face area. It also tracks your performance, lets you race against previous rides, and even provides navigation. Check out the Solos smart cycling glasses on Kickstarter today. 

For today’s ridiculous video, we have either a display of extreme skill or idiocy as we watch three of Scotland’s fastest races get acclimated with the Fort William downhill mountain bike world cup course. We’re going to give them the benefit of the doubt and although we respect their talent, we have zero intention of following in their footsteps.

That’s it for today’s edition of Drive Wire. For more, be sure to come back to thedrive.com, and follow us @thedrive on all your favorite social media platforms.

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