He did not win two races, but Lorenzo seems to have been a lifetime. In its roadmap impressive with 12 podiums in 12 races and 3rd place in Indianapolis as the worst result, “Porfuera” this weekend to try to find Motorland Aragon victory in a circuit particularly pleased, discovered in recent weeks with a Yamaha YZF R1 Street really enjoy riding …

” And’our third race so far this season in Spain, but the first in Aragon and not wait to get on track, “says Lorenzo. “I went there to try last month and I must say that is an incredible track. The first corner reminds me of Istanbul, there are a lot of ups and downs, is a fun place. I know there will be my fan club and I hope there will be fans and lovers, because I think we will have a good weekend. ”

For the Grand Prix of Aragon the goal does not change for Jorge Lorenzo, aim for the podium (it would be the 13th of 13 races this season) also to dedicate the result to the memory of Shoyo Tomizawa, tragically killed in Misano Adriatico.

“I play a great race and dedicate it to the memory of Tomizawa. My goal in every case is always the same, give up and try to get on the podium, we are ready to start working. “

Lotus Racing has today announced that it is throwing open the doors of its factory in Hingham, UK, for fans to take an exclusive look behind the scenes of the inner workings of the fastest new team in the Formula One™ World Championship. Paying guests now have the chance to take a tour of the team’s Norfolk home in 1½ hour tours, where they will see each of the key areas of the factory, including the Design Office, Composite and Machine Shops, Race Bays and the Race Team workshops – everything needed to build and run a modern F1™ team. In addition, guests will also have the opportunity to see the T127 race car up close and meet the people who make it all happen.

Guests will be shown around by dedicated tour guides, who will ensure that every visitor will be leave with a detailed understanding of all the processes that go into making a modern Formula One™ car¸ as well as a unique gift bag that will add to the lasting memories of their day at the team’s home. The factory is less than ten minutes from the original Lotus factory in Hethel, only 15 miles from Norwich and 105 miles from London, so it can be reached in less than three hours from the UK capital. As they are already experts in travelling to and from their UK base to races around the world, the team can also provide advice and assistance with transfers to and from Hingham, and local accommodation requests, at additional costs.

To ensure the race cars are in the factory, limited dates are available right now, and requests will be accommodated on a first-come, first serve basis. Three tours will take place each day, for groups of ten, and times can be arranged to suit each group. The first dates available now are listed below – more dates from August and through to the end of the year will be announced shortly:

Wednesday June 30th, Thursday July 1st, Friday July 2nd, Monday July 5th, Tuesday July 6th

Tuesday July 13th, Wednesday July 14th, Thursday July 15th, Friday July 16th

Wednesday August 4th, Thursday August 5th, Friday August 6th

Prices are £80 per person, with under-17’s half price at £40, and under-12’s go free – fantastic value for a once in a lifetime opportunity to take a look at the inner workings of a modern Formula One™ team.

Lewis Hamilton needs to temper his aggression if he wants to add another title to his tally.

That is the claim of Joan Villadelprat, the F1 veteran who is bidding to bring his Le Mans team Epsilon Euskadi onto the grand prix grid next year.

He also writes a column in the Spanish newspaper El Pais.

“Lewis Hamilton needs to calm down a bit to get the most out of his potential,” wrote Villadelprat.

“For me, he is one of the top three drivers in formula one, on the level of Sebastian Vettel and Fernando Alonso.”

Whilst running second in Barcelona and eyeing second place in the drivers’ championship, Hamilton suffered a tyre failure and crashed.

McLaren believes debris caused the problem, but even Hamilton was amazed that he has suffered more tyre failures since debuting in 2007 “than most people have in their whole lifetime”.

Villadelprat added: “I’m not saying what was the cause of his problem on Sunday.  But his history has shown that as a result of aggressive driving, he is one of the drivers who most consumes his tyres.

“And now that the tyres must withstand runs in excess of 50 laps, it can cause many problems,” said the Spaniard.

(GMM)

Apr.21 (GMM)  Flavio Briatore has revealed he has no intention of attempting to reconcile his broken relationship with former F1 colleague Max Mosley.

In his last year of FIA presidency in 2009, Mosley oversaw the imposition of ousted Renault team boss Briatore’s lifetime ban over the crashgate scandal.

But Mosley has since turned 70 and is now effectively retired, replaced by Jean Todt who has halted crashgate by agreeing to end Briatore’s ban in 2013.

Italian Briatore, now 60, also celebrated a birthday this month, and is currently at home with his model wife Elisabetta and their newly born son Falco.

But he told the Italian magazine Chi that he is not interested in making up with Mosley.

“He sent me a text message to congratulate us on the birth of Falco, but Mosley is part of my former life.  In my future there will be no place for him,” said Briatore.

“I’m happy for Jean (Todt),” the Italian added, “my friend of 20 years.  Thanks to him, the FIA can now quietly and serenely breathe new air.”

Briatore, who has always maintained his innocence despite conspirators Pat Symonds and Nelson Piquet admitting to plotting the deliberate crash of Singapore 2008, said he is not about to forgive the stain on his reputation.

“It was very bad for my story.  I suffered an injustice.  But the truth, the power of the truth, wins every time,” he insisted.

Despite the FIA agreeing to end its push to have a lifetime ban re-imposed, Flavio Briatore insists he is not guilty of race-fixing.

F1’s governing body on Monday announced that, after talks with the sacked Renault boss as well as ‘crashgate’ co-conspirator Pat Symonds, a settlement has been reached to end the scandal.

The FIA said the duo “expressed their regrets and presented their apologies”, in return for all legal action being dropped and the bans being effective only until 2013.

But Briatore, who turned 60 on Monday, later clarified that his regret and apology was not an admission of “personal guilt”.

The Italian’s statement, issued by his lawyers, also insisted that the settlement was not a recognition that the FIA’s verdict about Nelson Piquet Jr’s deliberate Singapore crash being true was “well-founded”.

“No further comment will be made by Flavio Briatore, who wishes to put behind him this matter and focus on his plans for the future,” added the statement.
GMM

The Italian, who turns 60 in a few days, successfully overturned the FIA’s imposition last year of a lifetime ban, but the governing body is now working on an appeal. Flavio Briatore has admitted he might return to formula one after 2012.

Briatore, having stepped down not only as Renault boss but also as chairman of the London football club Queens Park Rangers in the wake of the ‘crashgate’ scandal, has ruled out returning to the sport as a manager.

But his friend, the F1 chief executive Bernie Ecclestone, said a few days ago: “I think he could take up a role in the promotion of formula one.”

And Briatore has now told Italy’s Sky Sport 24: “I was thrown out as though a criminal. I will never come back to formula one as team manager, but perhaps (I will return) after 2012 in another role.”

One question almost every investor asks at some point is whether it is possible to achieve above market returns by selecting a diversified group of stocks according to some formula, rather than having to evaluate each stock from every angle.

There are obvious advantages to such a formulaic approach. For the individual, the amount of time and effort spent caring for his investments would be reduced, leaving more time for him to spend on more enjoyable and fulfilling tasks. For the institution, large sums of money could be deployed without having to rely upon the investing acumen of a single talented stock picker. Many of the proposed systems also offer the advantage of matching the inflow of investable funds with investment opportunities. An investor who follows no formula, and evaluates each stock from every angle, may often find himself holding cash. Historically, this has been a problem for some excellent stock pickers. So, there are real advantages to favoring a formulaic approach to investing if such an approach would yield returns similar to the returns a complete stock by stock analysis would yield.

Many investment writers have proposed at least one such formulaic approach during their lifetime. The most promising formulaic approaches have been articulated by three men: Benjamin Graham, David Dreman, and Joel Greenblatt. As each of these approaches appeals to logic and common sense, they are not unique to these three men. But, these are the three names with which these approaches are usually most closely associated; so, there is little need to draw upon sources beyond theirs.

Benjamin Graham wrote three books of consequence: “Security Analysis”, “The Intelligent Investor”, and “The Interpretation of Financial Statements”. Within each book, he hints at various workable approaches both in stocks and bonds; however, he is most explicit in his best known work, “The Intelligent Investor”. There, Graham discusses the purchase of shares for less than two – thirds of their net current asset value. The belief that this method would yield above market returns is supported on both empirical and logical grounds.

In fact, it currently enjoys far too much support to be practicable. Public companies rarely trade below their net current asset values. This is unlikely to change in the future. Buyout firms, unconventional money managers, and vulture investors now check such excessive bouts of public pessimism by taking large or controlling stakes in troubled companies. As a result, the investing public is less likely to indulge its pessimism as feverishly as it once did; for, many cheap stocks now have the silver lining of being takeover targets. As Graham’s net current asset value method is neither workable at present, nor is likely to prove workable in the future, we must set it aside.

David Dreman is known as a contrarian investor. In his case, it is an appropriate label, because of his keen interest in behavioral finance. However, in most cases the line separating the value investor from the contrarian investor is fuzzy at best. Dreman’s contrarian investing strategies are derived from three measures: price to earnings, price to cash flow, and price to book value. Of these measures, the price to earnings ratio is by far the most conspicuous. It is quoted nearly everywhere the share price is quoted. When inverted, the price to earnings ratio becomes the earnings yield. To put this another way, a stock’s earnings yield is “e” over “p”. Dreman describes the strategy of buying stocks trading at low prices relative to their earnings as the low P/E approach; but, he could have just as easily called it the high earnings yield approach.

Whatever you call it, this approach has proved effective in the past. A diversified group of low P/E stocks has usually outperformed both a diversified group of high P/E stocks and the market as a whole.

This fact suggests that investors have a very hard time quantifying the future prospects of most public companies. While they may be able to make correct qualitative comparisons between businesses, they have trouble assigning a price to these qualitative differences. This does not come as a surprise to anyone with much knowledge of human judgment (and misjudgment). I am sure there is some technical term for this deficiency, but I know it only as “checklist syndrome”. Within any mental model, one must both describe the variables and assign weights to these variables. Humans tend to have little difficulty describing the variables – that is, creating the checklist. However, they rarely have any clue as to the weight that ought to be given to each variable.

This is why you will sometimes hear analysts say something like: the factor that tipped the balance in favor of online sales this holiday season was high gas prices (yes, this is an actual paraphrase; but, I won’t attribute it, because publicly attaching such an inane argument to anyone’s name is just cruel). It is true that avoiding paying high prices at the pump is a possible motivating factor in a shopper’s decision to make online Christmas purchases. However, it is an immaterial factor. It is a mere pebble on the scales. This is the same kind of thinking that places far too much value on a stock’s future earnings growth and far too little value on a stock’s current earnings.

The other two contrarian methods: the low price to cash flow approach and the low price to book value approach work for the same reasons. They exploit the natural human tendency to see a false equality in the factors, and to run down a checklist. For instance, a stock that has a triple digit price to cash flow ratio, but is in all other respects an extraordinary business, will be judged favorably by a checklist approach. However, if great weight is assigned to present cash flows relative to the stock price, the stock will be judged unfavorably. This also illustrates the second strength of the three contrarian methods.

They heavily weight the known factors. Of course, they do not heavily weight all known factors. They only consider three easily quantifiable known factors. An excellent brand, a growing industry, a superb management team, etc. may also be known factors. However, they are not precisely quantifiable. I would argue that while these factors may not be quantifiable they are calculable; that is to say, while no exact value may be assigned to them, they are useful data that ought to be considered when evaluating an investment.

There is the possibility of a middle ground here. These three contrarian methods may be used as a screen. Then, the investor may apply his own active judgment to winnow the qualifying stocks down to a final portfolio. Personally, I do not believe this is an acceptable compromise. These three methods do not adequately model the diversity of great investments. Therefore, they must either exclude some of the best stocks or include too many of the worst stocks. It is wise to place great weight upon each of these measures; however, it is foolish disqualify any stock because of a single criterion (which is exactly what such a screen does).

Finally, there is Joel Greenblatt’s “magic formula”. This is the most interesting formulaic approach to investing, both because it does not subject stocks to any true/false tests and because it is a composite of the two most important readily quantifiable measures a stock has: earnings yield and return on capital. As you will recall, earnings yield is simply the inverse of the P/E ratio; so, a stock with a high earnings yield is simply a low P/E stock. Return on capital may be thought of as the number of pennies earned for each dollar invested in the business. The exact formula that Greenblatt uses is described in “The Little Book That Beats the Market”. However, the formula used is rather unimportant. Over large groups of stocks (which is what Greenblatt suggests the magic formula be used on) any differences between the various return on capital formulae will not have much affect on the performance of the portfolios constructed.

Greenblatt claims his magic formula may be used in two different ways: as an automated portfolio generation tool or as a screen. For an investor like you (that is, one with sufficient curiosity and commitment to frequent a site such as this) the latter use is the more appropriate one. The magic formula will serve you well as a screen. I would argue, however, that you needn’t limit yourself to stocks screened by the magic formula, if you have full confidence in your judgment regarding some other stock.

These four formulaic approaches (the three from Dreman and the one from Greenblatt) will likely yield returns greater than or equal to the returns you would obtain from an index fund. Therefore, you would do better to invest in your own basket of qualifying stocks than in the prefabricated market basket. If you want to be a passive investor, or believe yourself incapable of being an active investor, these formulaic approaches are your best bet.

In fact, if I were approached by an institution making long – term investments and using only a very small percentage of the fund for operating expenses, I would recommend an automated process derived from these four approaches. I would also recommend that 100% of the fund’s investable assets be put into equities, but that is a discussion for another day (in fact, it’s a discussion for Tuesday; my next podcast is devoted to the dangers of diversification). If, however, you believe you have what it takes to be an active investor, and that is truly what you wish to be, then, I would suggest you do not use these approaches for anything more than helping you generate some useful ideas.

If you choose this path, you need to be clear about what being an active investor entails. Read this next part very carefully (it is correct even though it may not appear to be): I have never found a screen that generates more than one buy order per hundred stocks returned. Even after I have narrowed the list of possible stocks down by a cursory review of the industry and the business itself, I have never found a method that can consistently generate more than one buy order per twenty – five annual reports read.

Here, I am citing my best past experiences. In my experience, most screens result in less than one buy order per three hundred stocks returned, and I usually read more like fifty to a hundred annual reports per buy order at a minimum. You may choose to invest in far more stocks than I do. Perhaps instead of limiting yourself to your five to twelve best ideas as I do, you might want to put money into your best twenty – five to thirty ideas. Do the math, and you’ll see that is still quite a bit of homework.

That’s why remaining a passive investor is the best bet for most people. The time and effort demanded of the active investor is simply too taxing. They have more important, more enjoyable things to do. If that’s true for you, the four formulaic approaches outlined above should guide you to above market returns.

The Court de Grande Instance ordered the lifetime ban imposed by the FIA against Briatore to be overturned.

Motor sport’s world governing body are currently looking into their options and considering whether to launch an appeal, a course of action Briatore has advised them against doing.

“I wouldn’t do it after such a verdict,” remarked the former Renault team principal in Gazzetta dello Sport.

Briatore, however, may now go gunning for the Piquets as it was they who blew the whistle on the ‘crashgate’ scandal.

Piquet Jnr deliberately crashed his car at the 2008 Singapore Grand Prix in order to help team-mate Fernando Alonso take the win.

Briatore, along with former Renault director of engineering Pat Symonds, were then implicated in the conspiracy by the Piquets.

The 59-year-old Italian did initially threaten legal action once the story emerged.

That was soon forgotten after he vacated his position at Renault, who had opted not to contest the allegation made against them by the FIA that they fixed the result of the aforementioned race.

Asked if he would now take action against the Piquets, Briatore replied: “That’s very likely. The bad that has been done to me won’t be forgotten in one day.”

Briatore’s problem, however, is the Tribunal merely stated the FIA sanction was “irregular” as it did not comply with their statutes.

At no stage has the TGI reversed the FIA’s finding that both Briatore and Symonds conspired to cause an intentional crash.

Clearly in a feisty mood, however, Briatore may also take action against those drivers who opted to break away from his management company, notably Heikki Kovalainen and Lucas di Grassi.

“Except for Kovalainen and di Grassi, my relationship with the other drivers has never changed,” added Briatore, who also oversees the likes of Mark Webber.

“In fact, now we’ll analyse the situation with the lawyers to see whether we should take legal action against anyone who has broken the contracts with us.”

Briatore’s main source of anger, though, remains directed at former FIA president Max Mosley who he once described as “complainant, investigator, prosecutor and judge” in the case against him.

“It was a case of vengeance from Mosley, who has always managed the FIA and the World Council as if it was private property,” remarked Briatore.

“He had reassured me, telling me they understood I didn’t have anything to do with that story. Then came that verdict. It was an ignoble thing after 18 years of F1.”

Source: PlanetF1