Peugeot reveals its 208 T16 Pikes Peak racer

Peugeot is returning to the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb this year after a 14-year absence, and it has begun teasing the 208 T16 that Sbastien Loeb will be piloting up the mountain. Sporting a carbon fiber effects package that you won't find on the dealership floor nor at your local tuner, even the cockpit is a surprise since it features a central driving position.

Waging war in the Unlimited Class, it will have gobs of power underhood, the number 208 on its sides and two self-locking diffs to get power to the proper wheels. The entire route is paved this year, but Loeb has proved he knows how to handle tarmac in a variety of circumstances: after taking third in the French GT Championship last year, he entered the FIA GT series this year and won the opening race of the season earlier this month in a McLaren MP4-12C.

Click on the image above to see it in high resolution.

UPDATE: Peugeot released images and video of the car this morning, so we've updated the gallery and the press release and video are below.

Race Recap: 2013 Chinese Grand Prix a test of tires, carnage and a fight for second [spoilers]

Formula One fans and commentators have spent the three weeks since the Malaysian Grand Prix discussing two things more than any other: that pass, and tires. Sebastian Vettel spent days giving his tongue an Olympic workout on the verbal gymnastics parallel bars before finally admitting he passed his Infiniti Red Bull teammate Mark Webber on purpose partly for reasons of payback, partly out of a desire to win he doesn't apologize for it and he would do it again.

Then came those Pirellis every single driver and team representative interview touches on how important it is to understand the tires and manage their degradation. Two races in, though, it seems no team has any clue yet how to make the race-weekend compounds work predictably. The only thing predictable about the soft compound tires that Pirelli brought to China was that they would last for six laps, and that led to an odd qualifying session with drivers reluctant to leave the pits or even set a time.

It also led to the first pole position for an Englishman in a Mercedes-Benz since Stirling Moss did it in 1955.

Peugeot teases its 208 T16 Pikes Peak racer

Peugeot is returning to the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb this year after a 14-year absence, and it has begun teasing the 208 T16 that Sbastien Loeb will be piloting up the mountain. Sporting a carbon fiber effects package that you won't find on the dealership floor nor at your local tuner, even the cockpit is a surprise since it features a central driving position.

Waging war in the Unlimited Class, it will have gobs of power underhood, the number 208 on its sides and two self-locking diffs to get power to the proper wheels. The entire route is paved this year, but Loeb has proved he knows how to handle tarmac in a variety of circumstances: after taking third in the French GT Championship last year, he entered the FIA GT series this year and won the opening race of the season earlier this month in a McLaren MP4-12C.

Click on the image above to see it in high resolution.

Travis Pastrana signs with Dodge for another year, brings partner Bryce Menzies [w/video]

Dodge and SRT Motorsports announced that the Dodge Dart will be returning for its sophomore season of the Global Rallycross Championship with a two-car team fielded by Pastrana Racing. Travis Pastrana drove his GRC Dart to victory lane in the fourth race of the car's inaugural season, and his race team is looking for even more success with the addition of off-road racer Bryce Menzies behind the wheel of the second car.

The 2013 GRC season kicks off on April 21 in Brazil with plenty of dirt-spewing, ramp-jumping action. Scroll down for a video from the cars' main sponsor, Red Bull, and a press release from Chrysler.

Hydrogen-powered Aston Martin Rapide S headed to the 24 Hours of Nrburgring

Aston Martin has announced it will both debut and campaign a hydrogen-powered Rapide S at this year's ADAC Zurich 24 Hours of Nrburgring. The company wants to be the first to manage a zero carbon dioxide emission lap in mainstream racing, and the racecar should be the first hydrogen-powered machine to compete in an international event. The Hybrid Hydrogen Rapide S will continue to use a twin-turbocharged 6.0-liter V12 engine for propulsion, though the prototype engine can be fed on either pure gasoline, pure hydrogen or any combination of the two.

In order to do so, Aston Martin had to install a hydrogen fuel rail, tanks and an entirely separate engine management system. The tanks themselves are hewn from ultra-high-strength carbon fiber. The four vessels can hold around 7.7 pounds of hydrogen at 5,076 pounds per square inch of pressure. Two get stashed next to the driver while the other two reside in the car's trunk. Check out the full press release below for more information.

Emotional photography captures the essence of classic F1 racing

Around the Autoblog office, we know Dick Kelley from his days on the public relations teams for Toyota and Mitsubishi, but more recently, he's been showing us a little of his past. Before working the PR machine, Kelley had a photography career that spanned three decades from the early '70s to the late '90s the first half of which was spent documenting Formula One races on film.

Other than a display at the 2012 Amelia Island Concours d'Elegance, Kelley says his images are "never-before seen," but that has all changed with a new website showing a vast number of timeless, emotional shots mostly of drivers. Motorsports photography is hard enough just when you're trying capture the cars, but catching the drivers and/or teams in candid images is an art form and almost unseen these days.

Head over to his website or Facebook page to check out a selection of images including the 1978 shot of Gilles Villeneuve winning in Canada shown above as well as other shots of racing greats like Emerson Fittipaldi, Bobby Rahal, Mario Andretti and Nigel Mansell.

Rally for youth with footage of the Opel Adam Rallye Cup Car

We checked out the Opel Adam R2 Rally concept and its 1.6-liter four-cylinder engine with 185 horsepower and 140 pound-feet of torque at the Geneva Motor Show. The one-make series the car was built for, the ADAC Opel Ralleye Cup, has kicked off with 24 teams in identically prepared cars lining up for eight races in this inaugural season.

Meant to help young drivers find a less expensive way into motorsports, the championship is part of the German ADAC Rally Masters series and will actually run 140-hp cars. We're not sure how much the Opel prepped by Holzer Motorsport for this series costs, but English company M-sport prepares an R2-spec Ford Fiesta with 170 hp for 43,000 pounds (about $66,000 US). There's 100,000 euros in prize money up for grabs and the cup winner gets career help, a shot at the Adam R2 car in 2014 and a chance to hop into rally-prepped Opel Corsas.

The first video below has shots of the Adam Rallye Cup car on the move. For more footage and a closer look at the car, the second video has more rolling footage and an interview in Danish with no subtitles, sadly with the Danish rally team of 22-year-old Simon Lund Larsen and co-driver Ole R. Frederiksen.