Ten Things We Learned This Week

Yup. Nokian tyres set about claiming one of the motoring world's less invigorating world records in an attempt to throw some extra kudos at its new Hakkapeliitta tyres.

This is unlike the tractor you'll get stuck behind next time you head to Norfolk for the weekend, though. Not only does the Valtra T234 have the power of a Focus ST and the torque of a Mercedes S65 AMG, but this one in particular had four-time world rally champ Juha Kankkunen at its controls. So as well as going in a straight line, he also indulged in more than a few dabs of oppo for the camera.

The end result? A heady 80.88mph, which isn't shabby at all for something more than three times the weight of a Range Rover. Though we're especially proud to mention we've been faster on a mower...

Hate cannons at the ready, internet, for wee Justin - famous for teen-pleasing music as well as his impish extra curricular activities - will soon be one of the 499 people in the world with a LaFerrari key hanging in their hallway.

In an interview with USA Today, somewhat wonderfully titled ‘My life is not easy', the man with 62 million Twitter followers responded to a question about what he's driving these days. "I'm still driving my Ferrari. It's a 458 Italia, and I just got the LaFerrari, it should be coming soon."

Having to toss a coin to select which Ferrari to drive. Life really isn't easy.

Feeling a caravan-being-blown-into-smithereens gap in your life? Let it be filled by watching this clip, in which a British caravan driver fails to successfully execute what had been an exceedingly marginal overtaking opportunity from the outset.

It's a rather messy end to what was doubtless a wonderful, fibreglass-cased bank holiday weekend away. Happily, there were no serious injuries. Though needless to say, the internet commenters have not been kind.

Well, he won't be until he's 18 anyhow. Formula 1's little whippersnapper, Max Verstappen, has been totting up some attractive headlines so thus far - the sports youngest ever driver to compete, and then to score points - but he's now in the centre of a very intriguing furore.

Young Max may compete under the same Dutch flag as father Jos, but his Belgian mother Sophie Kumpen has other ideas.

"The only identification that Max has is Belgian," she said this week, when speaking to a Dutch-language Belgian newspaper, just to exacerbate the confusion.

"He turns 18 on September 30, and on that date, and not before, he can opt for Dutch nationality. In the meantime, he is Belgian and nothing else," Kumpen insisted.

UK driving licence holders! Gone are the days of turning over every drawer, file and box in your house when you're required to show both paper and card parts of your driving licence as ID.

Gone also are the days of a paper record of any naughty speeding points you've acquired, too...

How so? The DVLA is killing off the paper counterpart. All the information that doesn't fit on the plastic card will be stored online, where you'll have the ability to share it with companies who may require it.

Your green paper part will be invalid from June 8, when it must be destroyed, we're told. Just need to find it first...

The cynics in the office scoffed. US-based Lyons Motor Company announced it would be taking a 290mph, 1700bhp supercar to the New York motor show. It would topple the world's very best. "Yeah, right!" they said.

And then when we arrived last week for motor show press day, it, err, wasn't there. Well take this, cynics: it rolled in fashionably late a few days later, proof emerging on Lyon's Facebook page via the picture above.

We give you the caption that accompanied it in its pure, unedited form: "Lyons Motor Car 1700 HP LM2 Streamliner concept the most anticipated car at New York International auto is on display now out performing all other cars in popularity".

The debate of quite what to do when the machines take over and our cars start driving themselves is one that will begin to expand in the coming years, we imagine.

But a University of Michigan study is aiming to stop it dead in its tracks. Sleep. That's what we should do when the cars take over.

Sound a little dangerous to you? It's the best way to avoid motion sickness, apparently, given that the likely alternative is reading, prodding away on a smart phone or working on a laptop, activities most likely to unsettle tummies on the move.

Would you dare catch forty winks in a car directing itself?

That's not the claim of a grammatically questionable movie poster. Rather, it's the result of some Bloomberg Business number crunching that's looked at all seven instalments of the hugely successful film franchise and assessed the percentage of each that is fast (i.e. some cars doing stuff) and furious (the bits where aggression and good old-fashioned scrapping takes over). There are, of course, opportunities for the two to overlap via the collision of cars.

The end result? F'n'F 7 has 49 minutes of fastness and 33 minutes of furiousness, both high watermarks for the series, the latter significantly up on earlier instalments. If the rumoured eighth instalment reaches the big screen, will there be any space left for dialogue?

Processed burger aficionados in the town of Coatesville, Pennsylvania, were this week stunned to witness a gentleman frequenting their local McDonald's drive-thru... on his horse.

The unnamed rider and his mighty steed were papped at the order window, the snaps spreading like wildfire on social media. "Why is there a horse in McDonald's drive thru?" asked one confused Twitter user. We suspect the horse was asking itself rather the same question.

No word on what the horse and rider ordered. We'd guess a McChicken sandwich with neigh-onnaise. Sorry.

A musician and 'Pastafarian' from Hove, East Sussex has accused the DVLA of discrimination for rejecting a photo of him with a colander on his head.

Ian Harris, 51, is a member of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, which regards colanders as sacred head-wear.

So he was a little peeved when the DVLA refused to accept the picture of him wearing the bowl-shaped pasta strainer in his driving licence photo.

"Who are they to decide which religions are true or valid," said the insulted Pastafarian. "Our religion is a minority but the DVLA is discriminating because it allows people who practice major religions to wear head gear in pictures."

Mr Harris has lodged a third appeal against the DVLA to try and uphold its decision. We'll bring you more news when we have it.