Formula: Lewis Hamilton celebrated his second Formula One victory in succession yesterday as the McLaren-Mercedes driver overcame the disadvantage of poor team tactics during a safety car phase to win the German Grand Prix at Hockenheim.
Renault’s Nelson Piquet Jr was a surprise second and Felipe Massa of Ferrari finished third behind Hamilton, whose fourth win of the season was the first for McLaren-Mercedes at Hockenheim in a decade.
Nick Heidfeld in a BMW-Sauber took fourth, followed by Heikki Kovalainen in the second McLaren, with defending world champion Kimi Raikkonen of Ferrari a disappointing sixth.
BMW’s Robert Kubica and Sebastian Vettel of Toro Rosso completed the points placings.
Hamilton, who also won the British Grand Prix two weeks ago, now heads the drivers’ standings with 58 points after 10 of 18 races thanks to his victory in a time of 1 hour, 31 minutes, 20.874 seconds for the 67 laps.
Massa sits second on 54, with teammate Raikkonen third on 51 and Kubica fourth on 48 points.
“We had the best car, the quickest car this weekend and we came out on top,” Hamilton said.
Starting from pole position on the grid ahead of Massa, Hamilton got a flying start into the first corner and immediately started building up a commanding lead.
The 23-year-old pitted on lap 18, taking on a significant amount of fuel for his second stint, but was briefly held up by Jarno Trulli of Toyota before the Italian pitted.
Once Kovalainen and Massa pitted, Hamilton once again started building up his advantage on the track, running up a lead of nearly 10 seconds after 25 laps.
However, the cars bunched back together with 32 laps remaining when the safety car was called out following a spectacular crash involving Timo Glock.
The Toyota driver’s right rear suspension appeared to snap, sending his car careering into the pit wall at high speed and sending debris flying all over the track.
Both Ferraris and Kovalainen were among a host of cars to take advantage of the presence of the safety car to pit, while Hamilton remained out on track, a decision that initially looked like it might cost him victory.
The drivers to gain most advantage from Glock’s misfortune were Heidfeld, who moved up to second thanks to pitting on lap 27, and Piquet Jr, who had also pitted just before the German’s accident and found himself in third when racing resumed five laps later.
Hamilton began to pull away again in an effort to build up a lead on Massa, but had to pit again on lap 50, returning on soft compounds in sixth place behind Kovalainen.
The Finn appeared to allow his teammate to pass him a lap later, while once Heidfeld pitted, Piquet Jr found himself the surprise leader from Massa.
Hamilton immediately began closing down on Massa and passed the Brazilian at the hairpin on lap 57 to move up to second behind Piquet Jr.
Piquet Jr’s Renault was also no match for the power of the McLaren and Hamilton regained top spot with eight laps remaining.
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