shyVRS245

I should be so lucky to quote Kylie. She managed to hold her phone steady enough and got it clear and just in the right position following my verbal instruction only , like a good blind dog............

Lewis dominates Q3 with a 0.5 second gap back to Max in the Red Bull and Bottas must be gutted with 3rd place on the grid. Pole Position 96 for Hamilton.

Ferrari is so nice to drive Charles is 11th on the grid after Q2 and team mate Seb crashes (again) and ends up 15th. Excitement for Lewis jumping from 15th to 4th barely starting his Q2 lap with just one second left on the clock. That could have been disaster.

Lewis puts in a blindingly quick lap in FP3 at Sochi to leave his team mate 0.7 second behind and 3rd fastest Sainz 0.8 second back. Max a full second back and Alban must have car problems because he is over 2 seconds slower than Hamilton. Boiling nicely for qualifying at 13:00 BST will LeClerc manage to hold off Russell in the Williams as he was 1.5 second slower than Lewis and the Williams 1.7 second slower (finished 12th and 13th).

Everything standard on the car been running a custom AmD map (Grays, Essex) stage 1 even my gearbox settings are standard but feels like 0-60mph in about 4.2 seconds. Fastest accelerating car I've owned. Use Tesco Momentum or Shell V-Power 99 octane for best results. Much criticised GPF probably robs it of about 20bhp compared to a 280 without GPF equipped exhaust.

ACC set to 60mph because that is 1,750rpm in 7th gear. Although we averaged 56mph down to Newquay the return 2 journeys we experienced delays on the M5 due to accidents so the overall average for the whole 574 miles was only 51mph. Worst the car did with 40 minutes of stop/start was 42mpg and the best after 190 miles was 49.0mpg. My normal commute is 70% motorway and 30% speed limits from 30-50mph. I try to stick to speed limits despite my car having 514nm of torque and almost 360bhp.

Back to work this morning after a week on holiday in the Superb and despite a chilly 6C outside it still managed 40.5mpg. Got to work 25 more days then on holiday for 3 weeks so the Superb will have a nice rest because we will use the Karoq and leave that at the airport like we usually do. Probably book 2 weeks in Turkey next week when I get paid if the wife can decide which Hotel she wants to stay. Her current favourite is a 75 minute coach trip from the airport which is not ideal.

Just done 574 miles in my 272 hatch with 145 miles left in the tank. Leicester-Newquay-Weston Super Mare-Leicester at 46.6mpg. Overall 39.9mpg after nearly 9,000 miles in 9 months. Very happy with the car and very pleased with the performance and economy.

Why did your Tesla need a new front end? I ask because I checked a lease price on the basic one limited to 8,000 miles per year and it was £100 per month more than my Superb although free road tax and lower fuel bills would compensate.

Stefano Domenicali the ex-Ferrari Boss will take over from Chase Carey as the Head of F1 from 2021 it has been confirmed. Must be paying him more to leave Lamborghini. Mercs looking like 1.0 seconds faster than 3rd fastest Renault after FP1 and FP2 in Sochi.

The Sportline sports seats are supremely comfortable for me at 6 feet tall and my wife is 5 feet 10 inches. Drove for 5 hours non-stop last Saturday to Cornwall and plenty of cars stopped and passed us twice as they stopped for a break or fuel.

I use this on both our Skoda’s.

Welcome to Briskoda Karl that's a good find with only 15,000 miles recorded.

Our 1.5TSi Karoq is very quiet. So quiet on a few occasions I have opened the driver's door to get out only to hear the warning buzzer to remind me the engine is still running. For performance it can and has out accelerated a BMW X1 so the 148bhp packs a punch and it is cheap to insure and best economy was 66mpg.

Oils have moved on since 1960. My wife's Karoq has the same 1.5TSi petrol engine and was registered new in Jan 2018 and had it's first oil change in October 2019 at 18,700 miles and is currently on 27,300 miles and the inspection oil service is due sometime next year either at around 37,000 miles or October 2021 whichever arrives first. Really nothing to worry about with modern fully synthetic oil.

@Colin170CR used ACC mainly on the 5 hour drive south and the indicated average on arrival was 48.3mpg with an average speed of 56mph. On the return trip used lift and coast more and averaged 47.5 indicated at a lower average speed of 53mph.

Not a bad long term average for a 360bhp petrol car. Wife took the 49.0mpg shot on her phone after 190 miles on the way to Newquay.

Going to cost at least £70,000 for the M3, probably £72,000 for the less practical M4 and if you wait until 2022 then the M3 Touring will probably be £74,000.

Must be Golf Mk8 owners ordering them having found Skoda borrowed this year's production quantity for the Octavia Mk4 launch.

More photo’s for Peeler.

The best way to compare yourself to an F1 driver is drive the same circuit and compare your corner entry speed with theirs. Silverstone GP Circuit October 1993 and a young Benetton driver is doing hot laps with 3 passengers in an Escort Cosworth so I jump in behind him for 3 thrilling laps. This man would go on to win 7 world F1 titles and it wasn't hard to see why as he turned into Bridge corner with just one hand on the steering wheel at 110mph which was crazy as a couple of years later in my heavily modified BMW 325i Coupe with uprated suspension, brakes, strut brace and wider wheels and M3 width tyres the fastest I could enter the same corner was 70mph. Schumacher simply had no fear and his confidence at 23 or 24 years old was off the scale and everything seemed to happen in slow motion for him yet appeared sped up for us normal people.

There’s more.

Some holiday photo’s.

Just returned from a 4 day break in the glorious and very sunny Cornwall and Somerset and we had a great time and the Superb was truly awesome delivering a quiet and comfortable ride whilst spending almost 12 hours in total in the car between home and Newquay (280 miles in 5 hours) then 142 miles to Weston-Super-Mare in 3hr 20 mins due to an accident on the M5 so we only averaged 42mpg for that leg. Best we saw on the whole trip was 49.0mpg after 190 miles and over 47mpg on the final 143 miles from Weston today, which took 2hr 40 mins. At our Hotel a Mercedes C63 AMG owner parked next to the Superb and I saw the owner looking through my driver's window at the interior plus there was a Race Blue Mk4 Octavia on a 70 plate in the car park during our stay. Some numbers on the last 2 tanks of fuel, filled up early Saturday morning before the trip so that 403 miles cost £53.85 used 46.46 litres for an average of 39.43mpg and the 4 day trip cost £64.86 using 55.96 litres covering 574 miles at an average of 46.63mpg which is very impressive considering my 302bhp Octavia Vrs245 averaged 45mpg exactly when we did a 360 mile round trip to the Isle of Wight during September 2018. Car has now done 13,749 miles and by next Monday I will have driven 9,000 miles in almost exactly 9 months since purchasing it last December. Overall now used exactly 1008 litres at a cost of £1,251.43 covering 8,848 miles at an average 39.90mpg which is truly impressive for such a large, powerful car.

I liked it until the price bit. £141,000 Ouch.