Toyota ace turns guru

Jarno Trulli, who has a home in the Alpine resort of Pontresina, will next week teach the Swiss ski team in the subtle art of how to drive a racing car very fast. The likes of Didier Cuche, Daniel Albrecht and Marc Berthod will assemble at an airfield in the Swiss municipality of Bad Ragaz for a lesson from Toyota’s evergreen pilot.

Maybe in the winter, Cuche and co. will return the favour and teach Trulli how to ski like a downhill racer.

[Blick]

You can’t beat a good car chase…

… And blog Rock the List has 30 of the best for your entertainment, including this classic from the Steve McQueen vehicle Bullitt.

Click here to watch all 30 clips

Other things we’ve liked on the global-wide interweb today…

James Bond downsizes his ride

Here’s a promotion shot for the new 007 movie, Quantum of Solace, showing Bond girl Olga Kurylenko behind the wheel of a golden Ford Ka. Ford won’t say if Bond himself will drive the Ka in the upcoming film, but it’s a long way from the sexy supercars of Bonds gone by.

Daniel Craig drove a humdrum Ford Focus in Casino Royale. That was the second instalment of a three-movie sponsorship deal between Ford and the Bond producers that began with the woeful Die Another Day in 2002 - remember the “invisible” Aston Martin (back when Ford owned Aston)?

The Focus was bad enough, but god we hope Bond doesn’t end up driving the Ka. It’s just wrong - we could hardly think of a less appropriate car for an uber-cool secret agent. What next, Ernst Stavro Blofeld on a Segway? M on a moped?

A couple more pics after the jump…

Actress trapped in car by vicious pack of snappers

Poor Sienna. First she accidentally ends up topless on a yacht with a married man, now she’s been forced to run a gauntlet of paparazzi at a gas station in Malibu. The pack of paps surrounded her as she was filling up with petrol. She asked them to leave, saying “I’m just trying to fill up my f**king car!”

But paps don’t know the meaning of the word “leave”, so of course they stayed and took even more pics. Sienna retreated to the relative safety of her car, and an attendant filled up for her. She then drove to the nearest police station to ask for help. Oh, grow a backbone you waste of skin.

More pics after the jump…

Meet the people who built Austin Powers’ Shagmobile

If you love classic cars, is there a better job in the world than working for these guys? We doubt it.

Pussycat Doll hangs on to man in LA airport

As Grid Crasher suspected, it looks like the rumour that Nicole was seeing will.i.am is bulls**t. This photo, taken at LAX airport yesterday, shows that F1’s hottest couple are stuck on each other. Or she’s stuck on Lewis, at least.

[Daily Mail]

Man Utd star treats himself to affordable run-around

Cristiano Ronaldo has celebrated his decision not to go to Real Madrid after all - not yet, anyway, but you watch him leave next year - by splashing out £340,000 (or three weeks’ wages to him) on a Rolls Royce Phantom convertible. The Phantom will replace the Portuguese star’s £140,000 Bentley Continental, which now looks cheap and tatty by comparision.

Btw: credit for this amazing piece of Photoshoppery goes to our spherical object-worshipping chums at The Spoiler. Although we doubt very much that Ron would choose it in blue.

KC: just a good old boy, never meanin’ no harm

Here’s the Prince of Thieves with Nascar legend Richard Petty, performing for howlin’ rednecks fans at the recent Coke Zero 400, held at Daytona.

Costner’s band, which he formed in 2006, is called Modern West. Modern what? That is one of the weakest band names we’ve ever heard. Which is fitting, as Modern West’s music is some of the weakest we’ve ever heard too.

More pics of Kevin at the mic, plus a bonus vid, comin’ right up y’all…

Bits of Hollywood star’s flipped truck hit the web

One opportunistic celeb-hunter collected fragments from Shia LaBeouf’s upturned truck and put them on eBay, with a starting bid of $200. Bargain.

The seller wrote on the auction site:

“I just happen to live a few blocks from the crash site and collected some leftover souvenirs… broken glass and some plastic pieces from Shia’s truck. (some of the pieces can be from the car he hit but his truck flipped and definitely suffered more damage) The debris was collected afterwards and was in the public domain on the street. a.k.a. it’s legal.”

Who would want to pay $20 for this crap, let alone ten times that much? Obviously no one, as the seller took down the listing early. However, we would buy a piece of Isabel Lucas.

[Jalopnik]

Look at the state of this supercar

Plastic bags, a CD, a fast-food drink cup… and that’s just on the passenger seat. That’s no way to treat a Ferrari.

So which English Premier League star has turned his supercar into a mobile rubbish tip? (Clue: much like the colour of his ride, he plays in red.)

Answer below: