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[sagi58]

The Financial Times:

Merger king: Ren uses state loan to build chemicals powerhouse

Ren Jianxin ...only really came to international attention with ChemChina’s €7.3billion (CHF8.1 billion) purchase of Pirelli, the Italian tyre company, in 2015.

WoW!! Pocket change, eh?

[sagi58]

Plans to speed up 2017 F1 cars watered down after Pirelli concern

Plans to make Formula 1 cars faster for 2017 are being watered down following an intervention from Pirelli.

Rule changes, including making cars wider and more dramatic-looking, had targeted a lap-time gain of five seconds.

But F1's tyre supplier Pirelli told teams its tyres could not cope with the planned increase in cornering forces without making them much more resilient, and therefore slower.

Teams are now investigating the effect of a revised series of changes with a smaller increase in aerodynamic downforce.

That work is ongoing, but leading engineers predict the cars will now be more like three seconds a lap faster.

Pirelli told BBC Sport the data it presented to teams was based on calculations at an early stage in the process of defining the tyres for 2017.

What is this all about?...

What derailed the plan?...

So what now?...

Hasn't this come up already?...

Is there a wider issue?...

What about engines?...