North East worst for road safety

THE NORTH EAST of England has the worst rates for deaths and serious injuries on England’s roads according to data from the Department for Transport. In 2012, the number of deaths and serious injuries in the North East increased by 8%, with an extra 65 incidents recorded compared to 854 in 2011. The South East of England, which suffered some of the worst statistics in 2011, is now the most improved region.

Land Rover Discovery Sport

With the launch of the Evoque, Range Rover and Range Rover Sports, Land Rover has sufficiently bolstered its range of high-profit 'luxury' family of vehicles. Now, the Discovery Sport has been unveiled as the first of its renewed 'leisure' models. As these pictures show, the boundaries between the luxury and leisure ranges lie pretty close together, with the new Sport drawing heavily on the Evoque's design themes: a few degrees of approach angle are traded for rounder, far-less utilitarian bumpers; the character lines are more deeply cut into the bodysides and rise more steeply, and the C- and D-pillars are much faster than the outgoing Freelander/LR2's.

Russian Grand Prix: Hamilton on pole for Mercedes

Hamilton (r) has pole in Russia followed by Rosberg (l) and Bottas (c) Amid tight security thanks to Russia’s ongoing spat in Ukraine, and a muted appetite for exuberance after Jules Bianchi’s dreadful crash with a JCB on track last weekend, the rest of the F1 circus seems to be on normal duty, with Hamilton’s Mercedes taking the front row and Hamilton dominating proceedings in qualifying to secure another pole position. But it wasn’t necessarily going all Mercedes’ way, with Bottas stringing together a very quick lap in the dying moments of final qualifying that looked like it could propel him in front of the Mercedes duo, until he lost traction at the end of his flying lap and had to settle for third spot in tomorrow’s race. Joining Bottas on row two is Jenson Button and his McLaren after a strong qualifying, and Daniil Kvyat – at his first home Grand Prix – managed to secure a very impressive fifth spot for Toro Rosso. Kevin Magnussen in the second McLaren would have been on row three in sixth spot but gets a five place penalty for a gearbox change.