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World Car of the Year finalists announced

To say the 2014 Geneva Motor Show was packed full of news is an understatement as big as the show's home at the Palexpo convention center. Despite everything that we were able to cover during this year's show, there's still more coming out of Switzerland, including the announcement of the finalists for the 2014 World Car of the Year Awards.
We reported on the original list of finalists over three weeks ago, and now, that initial list has been pared down to three finalists for each of the five awards. The finalists were announced at a press conference by frequent Autoblog contributor and co-chair of the awards, Matt Davis (above).
The finalists for the overall title of 2014 World Car of the Year are the Audi A3, the BMW 4 Series and the Mazda3. The World Luxury Car of the Year will be either the Bentley Flying Spur, the Mercedes-Benz S-Class or the Land Rover Range Rover Sport, while the Performance Car of the Year will be awarded to the Chevrolet Corvette Stingray, the Ferrari 458 Speciale or the Porsche 911 GT3 (which, um, yeah...).

Ferrari 458 Speciale is our Frankfurt fantasy [w/video]

This is the Ferrari 458 Speciale, and while its name might underwhelm, its performance and lineage more than make up for it. The successor to the proud line of hot, higher-performance, mid-engined Ferraris like the 360 Challenge Stradale and 430 Scuderia, the 458 Speciale is blessed with a 596-horsepower, 4.5-liter V8 and the ability to skip to 62 miles per hour in three seconds. It also comes with a not-so-subtle racing stripe, which we like.
Thanks to a scarcely believable curb weight of 2,844 pounds, special Michelin Pilot Sport cup 2 tires, and a few tweaks to the electronic diff, the Speciale is quite a dancer as well. Naturally, Ferrari is showing off the newest member of the scuderia at Frankfurt, and we made it a priority to see it in person. We've got a full gallery of live images above, a video and stock photography from Ferrari down below, and our original coverage of the car, from August, right here.

Raikkonen likely to retire from F1 after 2015 [w/poll]

Though his irreverent demeanor party-goer image might suggest otherwise, make no mistake about it: at 34 years old (and with 37-year-old Mark Webber out of the race), Kimi Raikkonen is the oldest driver in Formula One. He's three months older than Jenson Button, a good year older than his former wingman Felipe Massa, three years ahead of Adrian Sutil and a good decade beyond the latest crop of up-and-comers on the grid. So it's only natural that we should start wondering how much longer he'll stick around, and now we may have our answer.
Speaking with motorsport journalists at the British Grand Prix this past weekend, the 2007 World Champion and winner of 20 grands prix, Raikkonen indicated that the next season will likely be his last. According to numerous racing news outlets, when asked how long he plans to stay on the grid, the famously terse Finn responded: "Until my contract is finished, and then I will probably stop. That is what I think is going to happen."
Kimi was a relatively unknown entity when Sauber gave him his first drive in F1 back in 2001, upon which he finished in the points on his first race. He moved to McLaren the following season, racked his first podium finishes, and took his first win the season after that. He finishes second behind Fernando Alonso the next season, well ahead of the rest of the pack, and switched to Ferrari two seasons later in 2007, winning the world championship on his first season in red. After just three seasons, Ferrari showed him the door and Kimi left F1 entirely, trying his hand at everything from the World Rally Championship to NASCAR. He returned to F1 with Lotus in 2012, and in a rare move for Maranello, was invited back for this season on a two-year contract.