Michael Schumacher was minutes away from cutting Fernando Alonso's Formula One lead to single digits.
Then it all went bad at the Hungarian Grand Prix for the seven-time series champion.
Alonso dropped out of Sunday's race after crashing on the 52nd lap, and it looked as if Schumacher would make up ground on the Spaniard in the drivers' standings.
But on the 68th of 70 laps, Schumacher pulled into the pits with a shredded tire and was out of the race. He ended up eighth, getting one point to cut Alonso's lead to 10 -- 100-90.
"I am very disappointed. We had a great opportunity but we did not take it," Schumacher said. "The weekend and especially the race was something of a rollercoaster."
Jenson Button won the race, followed by Pedro De la Rosa and Nick Heidfeld. Schumacher originally finished ninth, but Robert Kubica was disqualified when his BMW-Sauber was found to be 2kg underweight.
"It's easy to say that this situation could have been avoided, but there is no point in crying over spilled milk," Ferrari team boss Jean Todt said. "There is not much we're taking home from this GP."
Schumacher had the fastest car in qualifying, but a two-second penalty dropped him to 11th in qualifying. He was caught passing two cars under a red flag in Saturday's practice.
Although Schumacher started four places ahead of Alonso -- who also was penalized in qualifying and started with the second fastest car in 15th -- it was Alonso who passed Schumacher and even lapped him on the 24th lap.
Then another turnaround.
Kimi Raikkonen smashed into the back of Vitantonio Liuzzi's Toro Rosso on the 26th lap. That brought out the safety car, closed the field and suddenly Schumacher was just 10 seconds back in eighth place when the safety car went off.
Cars dropped out, and Alonso and Schumacher were flying when the track dried from an early rain. But it soon came to an abrupt end.
"There are still five races to go," Schumacher said, looking ahead to the next race on Aug. 27 in Istanbul. "Nothing is yet lost and I will give it my all in trying to win the title."
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier