In brief, July 2010

* The 2010 Race of Champions will be held at Düsseldorf’s ESPIRIT arena in Germany rather than the ‘Bird’s Nest’ stadium in Beijing, China, which hosted the event in ’09. Michael Schumacher and Sebastian Vettel have been confirmed for the RoC, which is set to take place on November 26-27.

* Ferrari has become the first manufacturer to lap the Nordschleife in under seven minutes with a production car. A 599 GTO, driven by test driver Raffaele de Simone, posted a time of six minutes 58.1 seconds. The Formula 1 lap record, set by Niki Lauda in qualifying for the 1975 German Grand Prix aboard a Ferrari 312T, was 6min 58.6sec.

* Aston Martin Le Mans driver Darren Turner, FIA GT1 racer Oliver Gavin and various other BRDC members completed the London Marathon, raising more than £88,000 for children’s charity CLIC Sargent. Gavin (above) completed the 26.2-mile run in 2hr 54min 20sec. “My time should be enough to qualify me for the Boston and New York marathons, but if I want to do either of those my legs need to recover first,” he said.